Normal
by CdnChrgr
Summary: The war is over and Ezra is back home. Things can finally go back to normal. But for two young adults who grew up in the rebellion, the question arises… what is normal?
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N) There area couple of different reasons for me writing this. One, I watched the entirety of Star Wars Rebels recently and I really wanted to see this happen, even if I knew it never would. Because of that I got into the Rebels fandom trying to find someone who had written what I wanted. I found many, many good ones from Authors like RagnarDanneskjold, Lothcat1138 and SweetSinger2010, but none were really what I had in mind. I did however find one story by WestwardGlance (Many good ones there actually, I urge you to go read those stories) called Seeing Clearly that fit what I wanted, but it was only a oneshot and occurred in what I would say is the middle of the story. So, I decided to write my own.**

**Reason two actually has to do with my other story, Disturbed Reflections, which I actually haven't updated since September. I feel bad about that, but I've been having a bit of some writer block. Writing such a dark story can become a bit of a drag after a while. In any case, I am hoping that this fic will help me get back into writing. So, rest assured anybody who wants to see that story updated, I haven't abandoned or replaced it, I'm just trying to get the writing juices going again. I have also started a pole because I'm curious as to how you all want Disturbed Reflections to end, so if you have been reading that story I encourage you to go and vote.**

**Along those same lines, I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with Disturbed Reflections. DR is mostly an action story and I feel that though I've done the action and story arcs well for the most part, I don't know if I can say the same for some of the surprises I have in store and I don't think I have written interesting arcs for the characters themselves. So, for this story, I wanted to focus more on the characters rather than the action. There will still probably be some however because let's face it, this is Star Wars and I'm writing it.**

**I honestly do not know how long this story will go on for. I have a few ideas as to where to take this, especially in the beginning, but I hope to include you guys in the writing of this story. If there is a prompt that you guys want me to write in regards to this story please feel free to suggest it. The plot to this fic is not set in stone at all so suggestions on where to go next are appreciated. **

**In any case, I hope you guys enjoy this and don't forget to follow, favourite and review. Your support means the world.**

**Normal Chapter 1**

Ezra stared up at the ceiling of his tower while laying on his bed. He was bored out of his mind. He almost wished he was lost in the unknown regions again. At least then there had always been something to do.

He smirked a little as he remembered the blue skinned alien who had once been his bitter enemy, but could now be considered a friend and ally. Though he'd spent almost a month in the brig of the Chimera after the 7th fleet had finally exited hyperspace, he and the Chiss admiral had eventually agreed to work together in order to survive once it was realized that the Empire had abandoned them to their own devices. It had been a rather unpopular decision among the fleet until the news of Alderan's destruction by a superweapon known as the Death Star had come to light. It proved to be the last transmission the fleet would accept. Many of the Storm Troopers in the fleet had friends and family on the planet and the realization that Lothal was now a prime target for the weapon had sparked a quick, but decisive civil war among the fleet, ending with a clear victory in favour of the rebellion.

That was the beginning of just over six years of fighting for survival as an alien species known as the Grysk had begun to hunt them down. With the combination of the ex-imperial forces, Thrawn's tactical mind and Ezra's force abilities, they had endured until Sabine and Ahsoka of all people had found them, bringing with them a map back to known space, providing an escape for Ezra, Thrawn and the ex-imperials.

Thrawn had returned to the Chiss Ascendency while the rest had escaped back to known space, bringing with them information about this new threat. Thanks to the Grand Admiral's brilliant mind, they now had in idea about the Grysk's tactics, ships numbers, and a rough estimate as to where their home world was, information that could be invaluable to the survival of both the New Republic and the Chiss.

Now, he'd been home for almost two months and he was starting to get restless. Sure, the first few weeks had been interesting. There had been reunions with the crew of the Ghost and some of his friends and allies from the rebellion on the first day. Even Hondo had showed up. He'd met Jacen for the first time. The child was so cute and he was saddened to know he missed out on the first five years of the little guy's life. Then had come the amusing part when Sabine realized that his tower that she had restored and been living out of only had one bed. Like a gentleman he had offered to sleep in the Gauntlet. He was used to living in a ship now anyways.

It wasn't long before news had spread around Lothal that Ezra, 'The Jedi Hero of Lothal,' had returned to his home world and celebrations had kicked off planet-wide. That was a wild ride that he was glad was over with.

Before he knew it, people began returning to their normal lives. Hera had left with Jacen to go transport freight around the galaxy. Zeb and Kallus had returned to Lira San and the clones and Wedge had left to go rejoin the New Republic's navy while Ahsoka had went to do her own thing, whatever that was. Even Sabine was gone. She had gone back to Krownest when her mother had found out she'd returned to the known galaxy and ordered her to come back home (even if she had fought tooth and nail against it).

So now, here he was, alone in his tower with no clue what to do.

He needed to find something to put his mind to. Its not like he could just keep living off of the good will of the people of Lothal, no matter how much they insisted. But what could he do? He was a warrior lothrat and the planet, as well as the galaxy, was now at peace. Where was his place now?

He'd almost considered joining Luke Skywalker's new Jedi order, but Luke had been trained by Obi-wan and then Yoda. He had too much of the traditional Jedi in his order for Ezra to really fit in well. He'd visited the school once and actually had the opportunity to meet with Luke. The young man had been eager to learn what he knew of the force, but the differences in the ideologies their masters had instilled in them had quickly become apparent. Luke was still adamant that there was a place for Ezra in his school, but Ezra knew that if the two of them were around each other that much and preaching two totally different doctrines that it could only end in disaster.

What did normal people do he wondered? They got jobs. They found a girl, settled down and raised a family together. Sounded perfect… a little too perfect. He'd been living on a ship for most of his life. Lothal would always be his home, but he was starting to miss the stars and being able go wherever he wanted or was needed at a whim. The Nightbrother, Maul's old ship, was starting to look more and more inviting everyday, though he really needed to give the ship a new name… and definitely a paint job (he was honestly surprised Sabine never did that for him while he was gone). The red and black brought back too many bad memories.

If he left Lothal, things could go back to normal. His version of normal at least. He could fly across the galaxy, helping people in need and doing actual Jedi stuff instead of sitting around on his butt the whole day. The problem was he would have no family. The old Ghost crew had all gone their own sperate ways. He would just be flying off on his own… alone. That was the one thing that kept him from doing just that.

The whole settling down with a girl thing was looking quite appealing in light of that revelation. The problem was there was only one girl he'd ever really considered doing that with. However, even after all this time, he still wasn't sure what Sabine would think about that. He supposed he'd never know now. She was on Krownest with her crazy Mandalorian family and he was trapped here on Lothal.

An alarm went off and he instantly jumped to his feet and ignited his lightsaber, ready for anything. Years of fighting the Grysk had trained him to jump to action at the first sign of trouble. He stood there for a second with the only hum of his lightsaber and the cry of the alarm breaking the silence as he searched for the danger.

There was none, it was just his communicator. His lightsaber turned off with a hiss and he strapped it back to his belt. He felt kind of silly. This wasn't the first time it had happened, but after years of being constantly disturbed by the cry of battle alarms he couldn't really stop himself. You kind of get used to a certain way of living he supposed.

With one last shake of his head he answered the call.

o~0~O~0~o

Change could be a good thing.

Take for instance the day Sabine joined the crew of the Ghost. She had been alone, abandoned by Ketsu and on the run from the empire. She had nowhere to turn to, nowhere to hide and had been at the end of her rope when Hera and Kanaan had taken her in. The relative peace and security the Ghost had offered had been a welcome change in the greater scheme of things.

Then Ezra had joined the crew and turned their lives upside down. Zeb all of a sudden had a new roommate, Chopper had another organic to terrorize and then the near constant 'flirting' with her had started. But things eventually settled down and Ezra had become a normal part of the crew. She'd even found her best friend as a result.

But change didn't have to just be external, change could be internal too. Take the time Kanaan had literally forced her to come clean to herself and to them about her past, something she hadn't trusted anybody with since the day Ketsu had abandoned her. Not fully at least. But that day, she had admitted her fears and regrets, bared it all to everyone. It had broken her, but she had rebuilt herself stronger in the aftermath. With people she could trust, she could overcome any obstacle thrown her way.

On the flip side of things, change could also be negative.

She would always regret the day she had joined the academy. Malachor had been something that had affected everyone greatly. Kanaan's death would forever be mourned. The day Ezra had disappeared had haunted her for years.

The hunt for him had been somewhat therapeutic. Jedi often had a way of bringing stability and words of wisdom when they were needed most and she'd been trapped on a ship with Ahsoka for almost a year. Still, the day they had finally found the 7th fleet and consequently, Ezra, had been just what she needed. With her best friend back, things could finally begin to return to normal… at least that was what she had thought.

Her mother's demand that she return home had changed everything and thrown her plans right out an airlock.

Sabine had missed Ezra when he'd been taken to the unknown regions, but knowing he was less than an hour hyperspace jump away and not being able to see him was driving her crazy.

It wasn't like she wasn't trying to make time for him. They had commed each other at least once a week to keep in touch and Ezra had offered a few times to come and visit, but Ursa was keeping her so busy she had little time for anyone.

It had started with the combat lessons. Apparently, her mother wanted to make sure her skills hadn't lessoned any since she had taken up the vigil of Lothal. Of course, they hadn't, she had been fighting a war since she was 15 and been a bounty hunter before that. Not to mention she was a Mandalorian of all things and had underwent intense training while she was at the Imperial Academy. Combat was a normal way of life for her and nothing would change that. But now, her mother seemed intent on seeing those skills progress even further. She'd even begun bringing in men from other clans to spar against her. Fighting different opponents would "round her skills out" or something along those lines.

After that, she'd been given her own patrol to lead once a day. After all, you never know when another clan might launch a sneak attack on you, even if Mandalor had entered an era of relative peace now that the Empire was defeated and Bo Katan had successfully united all of Mandalor with the Darksaber.

She'd received clan management duties as well. Sabine had been tasked with making sure the warriors and other personnel had enough food and ammunition and she'd been tasked with overseeing scheduling and some of the day to day operations. If Clan Wren did it, you could pretty much guarantee that Sabine had her hand in it.

On top of everything else was the clan meetings. Her mother had begun dragging both her and Tristen to them to discus things like peace treaties and trade agreements.

Sabine had been worked this hard before in the early days of Lothal's liberation, but that had been because it was necessary. The Empire could have returned at any moment and there was a defence to prepare, buildings to fix and people to manage. It was amazing what you could do when hyped up on adrenalin and caffeine and at least then there had been an entire team of volunteers to help out as well as a promise that things would eventually settle down. Now, there was only more and more duties being piled on top of her and no end in sight.

All this had culminated this morning when she'd been summoned by the Countess herself. Sabine had arrived not knowing what to expect, but what had transpired was the straw that broke the Bantha's back.

"You've been adjusting well in your time back at home." Her mother had begun, "You're doing wonderfully in your duties and I've seen your skills while you've been training, quite impressive."

"Well, I've had some pretty good teachers." Sabine humbly replied.

"Any of your sparing partners catch your eye?" Ursa asked in a nonchalant kind of way.

"What?" Sabine exclaimed, surprised. The stiffening of her back did not go unnoticed by the Countess.

Ursa sighed, "I'm getting older Sabine. One of these days I'm going to have to step down as Countess and now that you've proved yourself to not only Clan Wren, but to all of Mandalor, you can take your rightful place as the next in line. We must look to the future to make sure everything is secure. Your 26 now and not getting any younger. Tristen already has a wife, but I'll wager you haven't even entertained the idea of settling down yet."

Sabine just stood there, shocked, but anger was quickly rising to take its place. Ruling the clan, that was her mom's thing, or Tristen's. He'd been training for it ever since she had been declared dar'manda after leaving the Academy. Sure, she'd made up with her family, but as far as she was concerned, Tristen was still going to be the one to take over. And then there was the whole get a husband thing to top it all off. How dare her mother ask that of her?

"Sabine, I know this is a lot to ask of you, but think of the clan." Her mothered urged.

Sabine gave a little laugh to herself and shook her head, "I can't do this. Not right now." Any attempt at conversation at the moment would only end in a shouting match. Both of them were just as stubborn as the other, but her mother had one thing she didn't have, the title of Countess before her name. If she wanted anything productive to come out of this she would have to stop and calm down some, think this through. "Just give me some time, I need to think for a bit." She said more calmly than she felt.

Ursa nodded.

"I'm taking the rest of the day off." Sabine said, "I need a break and some time to myself." With that she turned and exited the room before her mother could protest. Almost as if she was on auto-pilot, she made her way to her room. She needed to process the last few months of her life. She needed someone to talk to and help her organize her thoughts. At least there was one person who would always do that for her. Reaching for her communicator, she imputed Ezra's frequency.


	2. Chapter 2

**(A/N) I should have said this last chapter, but I didn't so here I go… I do not own Star Wars Rebels or any of its characters.**

**Also, I wanted to explain a little more what my plans for this fic are. This will probably be a mixture between Canon, Legends and my own Head-Canon. However, though I am a big Star Wars fan, there is still a lot I don't know so I'm sorry if I get a few details wrong. Another thing, I don't know if this story will ever be completed. My current plan is to write this as a series of arcs. I plan to get an idea, write that arc and then when that arc finishes, I'll try and leave it at a place where the ending of it could be a conclusion. Then, when I have an idea for a new Arc, I'll just pick up where I left off.**

**That being said, I should also let you guys know how I hope to come up with these arcs. First up, there will be the arcs that I want to see happen and I believe tie into the theme of the story well. Secondly, there have been a few things online that I have read or seen and like that I may borrow from. If and when this happens, I'll try to link back to the story or image I got the idea from. There will be a few that I can't remember where they came from however and for that I'll apologize in advance. The third option for where I get ideas from is where you come in. I want to know what you guys want to see Ezra, Sabine and whatever other characters I may introduce, get involved in. So please, send me your ideas and I'll see what I can do.**

**Don't forget to follow, favourite and review. I love hearing from you guys. And remember, above all, enjoy :)**

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**Guest 1: I will indeed.**

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**Sabinewren20.22: Thank you.**

**Guest 3: Thank you.**

**KnightLawn: Thank you.**

**Guest 4: I did not know that. I'll keep that in mind if I write any future Star Wars stories.**

**Normal Chapter 2**

Ezra smiled at the flickering image of Sabine as he took in her familiar features over the hologram. Apparently, her hair had been cut sometime before she left to go search the unknown regions for the sake of practicality, but thankfully, it had since begun to grown back in. About four inches of her natural dark brown hair was visible with the tips being a vibrant purple. And those eyes… he could get lost in those amber eyes of hers. Too bad the blue of the hologram distorted them. He desperately missed being able to see her in person, but he would take what he could get at the moment.

"Hey Sabine." He greeted, "I was just thinking about you."

Sabine smirked with teasing glint to her eyes, "Oh, you were, were you?"

"I, ah- umm- yeah…" He stuttered as he rubbed the back of his head, "Well I was just thinking about taking the Nightbrother out for a spin and I thought to myself that I hated the color. I was hoping I could get you to paint it sometime."

"Oh, not a fan of the black and red?"

"Nah, brings up too many bad memories." Ezra grimaced as images of Maul and the dark times he had gone though in the pass came to mind.

She nodded in understanding. "So, why didn't you?" she asked, trying to steer the conversation away from those memories. No one needed to relive those days.

"Why didn't I what?"

"Take the Nightbrother out for a spin?"

Ezra gave a sad little chuckle to himself, "No where to go and no one to go with."

Sabine's face softened with compassion. She knew one of Ezra's biggest fears was being left alone after the death of his first family and now that the war was over the crew of the Ghost had all gone their separate ways. Not that any of them wouldn't drop everything and come running if he needed them and they all still kept in touch, but Ezra had sort of been left to find his place again while the rest had already moved on with their lives. "How are you adjusting?" she asked.

"Oh, you know, its been nice and peaceful here… I've taken a few trips out to see the galaxy. Saw Skywalkers' new school and I've been doing a lot of meditating and lightsaber practice… but sometimes its just too quiet."

Sabine gave a humourless chuckle, "Wish I could be there with you…"

Ezra recognized that tone in her voice, something was bothering her, "Sabine, what's wrong?"

"Oh… my mother is just being her usual self. Trust me, treasure the fact that you don't have anyone controlling every aspect of your life."

He could contest that. The force had taken six years of his life after all, but he could tell Sabine needed him at this moment so he let the issue slide.

"What is Countess cold doing now?" Ezra asked with a grin, which was immediately replaced with a look of panic as he realised what he just said, "Wait, she's not there is she?"

Sabine gave a little chuckle at his humor, "No, but you better not let her hear you say that."

Ezra let out a sigh of relief, "Thank the force."

Sabine let out another little laugh, but then her expression turned serious, "But to answer your question, mother tried to make me the next in line for the throne." She said with a sigh.

Hey, that's great!" Ezra paused when he realized Sabine frowned, "I think… What's wrong with becoming the next Countess? I think you would do a great job."

Sabine smiled, "Thanks, but there is more to it than just doing a good job. I'm a Mandalorian. I'll always be loyal to Mandalor first, but I haven't really lived here in a long time. Not since before my academy days really. A majority of my life hasn't even been spent in Mandalorian space… My home's always been the Ghost, or Lothal… Krownest will always be a part of me, but it isn't my home anymore…"

"Where is home?" Ezra asked.

"It's… I don't know… But that isn't the only thing."

"Oh?" Ezra said with concern rising in his voice.

"It isn't strictly required… in most cases anyways, but it is highly encouraged for ruling members of a clan to be married."

Ezra stiffened a little upon hearing that, but he tried his best to hide it. Hopefully Sabine didn't notice. If she did, she didn't acknowledge it and just kept right on ranting.

"Ezra, I'm not ready to get married… I don't wan to lead my clan… That's my mother's thing, or Tristen's… For Manda's sake, I just got back, I don't want to rush into anything… It's just… UHHG!" She yelled, "Is it horrible to wish for the days of the Empire and Rebellion again? To just go out into space with my family, cause some trouble and blow up some bucketheads? For things to just be…"

"Normal?" Ezra supplied.

"Yes!" Sabine stressed. "I've been pretty much running the clan for the past few months and I hate it… and now my mother wants to make this a permanent thing!

I just want to blast off into space and forget about everything, go on another adventure! I'm a warrior… ask me to blow up a tower, shoot some Imps or lead troops on the front lines and I'm your girl. It's what I'm good at. I don't lead an entire people through all of life's ups and downs."

"I know what you mean." Ezra replied once she had run out of steam, "I can't tell you how many times I've almost done exactly that. The only thing keeping me from actually following through is the lack of someone to do it with…" He trailed off.

They both were silent for a few moments before Sabine finally spoke up, "Why don't we?"

"What?" Ezra asked, shocked, but his interest was piqued.

"Why don't we blast off into space… just the two of us? It will almost be like old times. We could take of in the Nightbrother, fly across the galaxy, helping people and getting into trouble like we used to."

"I don't know…" Ezra replied. He liked the idea, but there were some concerns making themselves known in the back of his mind, "What would we even do for credits? A ship doesn't supply itself and we'd need to fill our stomachs somehow."

Sabine thought for a moment "We could haul freight, like Hera… Or we could transport people. There is bound to be a few high profile and paranoid individuals who would pay top dollar for a Jedi _and _a Mandalorian bodyguard every once and a while."

"What about your family? And the Countess, isn't she counting on you?"

"They've gone the last 15 years without me, they'll survive, and I'm 26, I can make my own decisions. She can find someone else to take over Clan Wren."

"How would we even pull this off? If your mother is tasking you with so much stuff, will she even allow you off planet?"

Sabine paused in thought, "Probably not… I'll talk to her. We may have to sneak off the planet… Just let me handle the details and come and get me."

"Wait, wait, wait… let me get this straight. You want me, a Jedi, to go to Krownest, possibly kidnap their heir and then go roam the galaxy in the Nightbrother without any real clue as to how we'll get by."

"When you put it that way it sounds bad, but pretty much."

"Ok." Ezra said with a smile on his face, "I'll pack and be there in two hours."


	3. Chapter 3

**(A/N) I was going to update this tomorrow, but I'll be a bit busy then, so here is an early update for you guys :) **

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**Chapter 3**

Sabine was beaming with anticipation as she watched the wings of the Nightbrother rotate into a vertical position and the ship began to settle itself on the ground. It finally felt like she was taking control of her own life. Sure, she had always been willing to do the things she had committed her life to, she'd never take back her days in the rebellion, on Lothal or searching for Ezra. Those days had their purposes, she had been needed and she had risen to the challenges, but this was the first time she was doing something that had no cause or reason behind it. She was doing this because _she_ wanted to and nothing more.

"You sure about this?" Tristen asked from beside her.

"Yes." Was her only reply.

Tristen nodded, "As long as your prepared for the fallout. Mom's not going to be too happy about this."

"I'm prepared. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"Very well."

The Nightbrother's ramp finally lowered and a familiar face walked out into view.

"Ezra!" Sabine happily yelled to the grinning young man as he made his way over.

"Hey Sabine." he greeted heartily, but he was caught a little off guard when he suddenly found himself enveloped in a hug, "Woah, someone missed me." He said as his grin grew even wider and he wrapped his own arms around her. After a few seconds of reviling in the embrace, he noticed a few people he didn't recognize staring in their direction and maybe even sensed some jealousy coming off a few, "I think some of your friends are getting the wrong idea." He said with a sigh and ended the hug.

Sabine backed up a step with a slight blush on her face and gave a sigh of her own, though for totally different reasons, "Let them think what they want." She said as she turned to look at the Mandalorians that her mother was looking to set her up with. They had begun to follow her everywhere even before she had known her mother's intentions in hopes of getting in her good graces. It was starting to drive her up a wall and she needed a distraction from those pests. Studying her friends face seemed like a better idea instead. She missed being able to see it in person and she wasn't going to pass this opportunity up, especially since this was the calm before the storm with what she had planned. Ezra had grown his hair out a few inches since he had returned home and to her surprise, a short beard had managed to find itself onto his face, "This," she said and pointed to the offending facial hair, "has to go."

"What?" He said with mock hurt in his voice, "I'll have you know that I look quite dashing in with a beard."

Sabine rolled her eyes, "It tickles when I hug you."

Ezra laughed in response, "Good thing we don't hug often then."

"Seems to happen more and more all the time," She said with a wink, "First onboard the Chimera and now this, I might just make this into a regular habit."

Ezra took a step back in shock, "Ok, who are you and what have you done with the real Sabine?" He asked, which earned a chuckle from said girl.

Tristen, shook his head with a smile plastered to his face at the antics the two friends were up to. Seeing that they were about done with their re-reunion he figured he could finally greet the young Jedi without intruding, "Good to se you again Ezra."

"Hey Tristen." Ezra greeted with a smile and shook his hand, "nice to see you again too."

Another Mandalorian ran up to the trio at that point, "Sabine, your mother will see you now."

Sabine nodded and gave a little sigh. She was anxious and one look at Ezra and she could tell he knew it to.

"You haven't told her yet." He stated.

"Nope." Sabine answered with resignation in her voice.

"Well, good luck you two." Tristen said, "I'll go ahead and put Sabine's things on board.

"Thank you." Sabine said and then motioned Ezra to follow her into the stronghold.

"You told him?" Ezra asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

"Yep. I needed to make sure he was ok with remaining heir to the clan. If he was expecting me to take over again, it wouldn't be fair to just dump it on him like that."

Ezra nodded, "So you told him, but not your mother."

"Well, she was in a meeting. I've been waiting for her to get out of it before I told her."

"Why not just take off without her knowing? It might be easier that way. You know, ask for forgiveness later rather than ask for permission now."

"I can't just do that to her." Sabine replied, "I respect her too much to just vanish on her and I would like to leave on good terms if I still can. Doesn't mean I'll let her keep me here, just be prepared for a jet pack pick-up if she freaks."

Ezra nodded in understanding.

They paused in front of the doors to the Throne room.

"Well, here goes nothing." Sabine said.

"I'll be eagerly waiting." Ezra replied.

Sabine's face fell a little, "You're not coming?"

"Well, I ah- I just assumed… what with this being a family matter and all and me being a Jedi and you're a Mandalorian and so is your mom and they probably don't even know I'm here yet and… yeah."

Sabine chuckled, "Come on… I could use the emotional support anyways."

Ezra nodded and she turned to push open the door.

The throne room was intimidating as always. Her mother was seated right in the center with her father standing by her side. That was good. She could probably gain some sympathy from him.

"Sabine…" Her mother greeted, "… and Ezra. This is a surprise. I wasn't aware that you were on Krownest."

"Yeah, well, Sabine asked me here so here I am." He said a bit awkwardly while rubbing the back of his head in a nervous gesture.

Ursa nodded and turned her attention back to her daughter, "What is it you would like Sabine? I have a busy day and I'm sure you have plans with Ezra, so let's not waste time."

Sabine nodded and prepared herself. She was anxious and nervous so she needed to make sure she knew what she was going to say. A wave of calm confidence suddenly washed over her, giving her the strength to stare her mother straight in the eye. "I wish to allow the title of heir to stay with Tristen. I have already talked to him and he agreed. Furthermore, I wish to leave Krownest for a while. I'm not sure when I'll be back." She wanted to say 'if,' not 'when,' but it would be best to start off small and see what she could get away with.

Ursa narrowed her eyes a little and turned her attention to Ezra for a brief second, "Ezra, please leave us for a minute. There is much I have to discuss with my daughter."

"No! He stays!" Sabine forcefully stated.

Ursa split her attention between the two young adults in front of her. Ezra seemed liked he would rather not be caught in the middle of these two, but he was supporting her daughter nonetheless. Meanwhile Sabine was standing straight and tall. She knew what she wanted and there was nothing that would keep her from her goal. It was an amusing sight to say the least as they almost reminded her of herself and Alrich… Her eyes narrowed as understanding dawned on her.

"Sabine." Her mother said in a tone that conveyed there would be no room for protests, "Come walk with me." She gestured as she rose up from her throne and started walking to the balcony.

Sabine had a brief inner struggle about whether or not to follow, but she made up her mind quickly. This would be an acceptable compromise. Out there they would both be at relatively the same head level and the intimidation factor the throne room threw in would not be in play. Hopefully it would set the stage for a discussion, rather than a one sided argument. Ezra made to follow her as she left, but she motioned for him to stay put and he did so.

Once outside, her mother leaned against the railing and gazed out at the frozen lake. Sabine quickly followed suit.

"Your loyalty to the Jedi is admirable, but misplaced." Ursa finally spoke.

"What?" Sabine said with a hint of anger rising up with it.

Her mother turned her gaze on her daughter, "Sabine, you're a Mandalorian. Your first duty is to Mandalor and then your clan. You can't just go and waltz around the galaxy because some Jedi asks you to."

"He never asked!" Sabine replied, "I'm doing this because I want to. I just asked him to come along."

"I see." Ursa said. Sabine had just unknowingly confirmed her theory for her.

"Do you? My whole life has been spent doing things because I needed to. The Academy, the Rebellion, Lothal, the search for Ezra. Each of those were because something somewhere needed to be done and I was the best suited for the job. My whole life has been consumed by various causes and responsibilities. It's time I do something because I want to and no one else."

Ursa let a moment pass before she decided to speak again, "Are you sure it's not because of that boy?"

"What?" Sabine stuttered.

"I must admit, when I gave the suggestion that you should start thinking about marriage, I did not think that the Jedi would be your first choice."

"Mother!" Sabine yelled in indignation, but Ursa would not be silenced, "I give the hint that you should be thinking about marriage and your future and the first person you contact is not a Mandalorian but the Jedi. A man whom you spent five years protecting his planet from the Empire and then another year searching for in wild space. What's more, within three hours of the suggestion, he is not only here, but you want to go and fly off into the galaxy with him and only him and with no real plan whatsoever."

"I- ahh, well… He's my best friend. Sorry if I want to be able to see him again after he's been missing for six years!"

Ursa was not to be thrown off track so easily, "You've dedicated six years of your life to him Sabine. Don't you think that's enough? Unless you do have feelings for him."

"No! I don't. He's just a friend." She tried to defend.

The slight reddening of her daughter's cheeks did not go unnoticed by Ursa, "Your stuttering, actions and body language says otherwise. Sabine, you're a Mandalorian, he's a Jedi. The two cultures cannot and will not mix. Clan Wren will forever be indebted to him for his actions on Mandalor and he will always be welcome here, but I must insist that you stop putting your life on hold for him. As Countess of Clan Wren and as your mother, I forbid you from leaving Krownest."

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra watched as Sabine disappeared through the door to the outside and wondered how the two woman's conversation would go. It wasn't until he heard a throat clear that he realized he's been staring at the place where Sabine had disappeared.

"Young Jedi, follow me if you would, please." Alrich requested.

"Ahh, yes sir." Ezra replied. Inwardly, he was a little thankful for this turn of events. He was much more comfortable around Alrich that the Countess, but he was still concerned for Sabine and wished he was still around to support her.

He followed the Mandalorian artist down a few halls and into a small room which he assumed was his office. Ezra took a look around as he walked in. The office was large and lined with rows upon rows of books. Real ones, too, not the data pads that most people in the galaxy used. In a corner stood an easel with a blank canvas set upon it. It appeared that the artist was looking for a new piece of inspiration as there were a few crumpled pieces of paper lying around the area.

Alrich reached over to a shelf and grabbed a bottle of something and poured two glasses. Handing one to Ezra, he gestured for him to sit down and took his own seat behind his desk.

Ezra took his seat and gave the drink an appraising glance. It had a rich blue color and a strong fruity scent.

"It's a Mandalorian wine. Not as strong as some, but tasty nonetheless."

Ezra nodded, took a quick sip of the beverage and quickly decided he liked it.

"So, what do you think of my daughter?" Alrich asked.

Ezra didn't even have to think of his answer, "She's an amazing and talented young woman. I am honoured to have been able to fight by her side."

Alrich nodded, "Indeed. She thinks highly of you too you know."

Ezra nodded, "Thanks."

Alrich smiled and watched as Ezra took another sip. He waited until the young man had a mouthful of the wine before he continued with a conspiratory smile on his lips, "And now you want to go out into the galaxy and be _with _my daughter."

Ezra nearly spat his drink out, but managed to keep it down with a few coughs as some of the wine went down his windpipe. He couldn't help but notice that Alrich had a smile on his face as he waited for Ezra to catch his breath.

"I, well…"

"Please Ezra, I've seen the way you look at her and they way she looks at you, as well as they way you two act around each other. There's no need to hide your feelings from me."

"Well, like I said, she's an amazing and talented young woman. I love her artwork, we've fought side by side together for years and often we can pretty well communicate without even talking. Any guy would be lucky to have her at his side… but I don't want just any guy at her side."

Alrich nodded, "You love her?" He poised this as a statement more than a question.

"I… yes. It started out as nothing more than a crush, but it grew into so much more... We've forged a bond together, which I didn't even know was possible with a non force sensitive, but it still happened."

Alrich had no real idea what being bonded meant to a Jedi, but the ways of the force were a foreign concept to him and so he let it slide. It was obviously important to Ezra and so he would leave it at that. "Then why haven't you said as much to her?"

"You know how she is. She's always so closed of from her emotions. The trails of the Darksaber helped her to open up quiet a bit, but she's still Sabine. I guess I haven't pushed it out of respect for her."

"If I know my daughter, and I do, she's probably been looking for the right circumstances… or too embarrassed to admit them to herself. Maybe a journey together into space would be just what she needs."

"What are you saying?" Ezra asked.

Alrich paused for a moment, one hand rising up to stroke his chin as if he was studying a work of art, "Before I answer, I have one more question to ask you. If you were to succeed in flying though the galaxy together, what would your intention be?"

"I, well, I don't know. This has all happened so fast, I've just been riding the wave of euphoria."

"Humor me." Alrich asked.

"Well, I guess, start our lives and find our place in the galaxy. We've both been fighting for so long, I think were both wondering what a normal life is like."

Alrich nodded, apparently content for now, "Very well, Thank you Ezra Bridger for an honest answer. I believe you are a decent and respectable young man, someone I would be proud to see my daughter with. You two match each other and you obviously hold Sabine in high respect. Here and now, I give you my blessing to leave together and in any future relationship you two might have."

Ezra gaped, "I… I don't know what to say… thank you."

Alrich smiled, "I doubt my wife will see things the same as I do, but I will handle her. So go, find my Sabine and get out of here before she Ursa can figure things out. However, I do warn you, my daughter is my treasure and though I am an artist, I am still a Mandalorian."

o~0~O~0~o

Sabine was furious as she re-entered the throne room with her mother at her heals. The conclusions her mother had come to were absurd. Weren't they? Ok… maybe not so much. She knew she had started viewing Ezra as something more than a good friend a long time ago, it had just always been more convenient not to acknowledge that fact. They had been fighting a war the entire time they knew each other for Manda's sake, what if one of them were to die, or disappear? Which was exactly what actually had happened. Ezra had been gone for six years of her life and though she had grieved tremendously for the loss of her best friend, she could only imagine how much worse it would have been if they had actually confessed feelings for one another before hand. So, maybe she felt something for Ezra, so what? That still didn't mean that her mother should forbid her from leaving with him.

Shaking her head of the thoughts, she swept her gaze across the room and spotted her father and Ezra entering through another door. Odd that they had left, but the two of them seemed to be in good spirits so she couldn't blame them.

Seeing the two women, her father made her way over, approaching Sabine first. She was a bit surprised when she found herself enveloped by a tight, almost desperate, hug.

"Goodbye my daughter," Alrich whispered, "Be safe."

Turning from her, Alrich then made his way to his wife. "Ursa, may I speak with you for a minute?"

Sabine was still contemplating her father's words when she felt herself being tugged along by Ezra.

"I take it from the way you walked in that your mother didn't really support the idea of us leaving together?" He said.

"What? Oh yes. No, she didn't." She said, trying to put her attention back on Ezra, "What were you and my father talking about?"

"He gave us his permission to go, and agreed to distract your mother for us, so come on, lets hurry before she catches on."

The two young adults hurried through the halls of the Wren Stronghold and made their way to the Nightbrother where they found Tristen waiting for them.

"How'd it go?" He asked.

"As well as can be expected." Sabine replied.

"That bad huh."

"Well, father agreed, so there is that."

Tristen nodded, "I guess this is goodbye then."

"It is." Sabine said as she enveloped her brother in a hug. There were too many hugs today, what was with that? "Goodbye Tristen."

"Goodbye Sabine." He said as he released her and watched her climb the ramp into the ship. He grabbed Ezra's shoulder as he made to follow her, "You take care of her… and be good to her."

"I will." Ezra promised, "Thank you for doing this for us.

Tristen nodded and stepped back, "No problem, have a good trip."

He watched as the ramp closed itself and the ship began it's start up sequence. They must have really been hurrying because it was off the ground in less the 30 seconds. Satisfied he had done all he could, he watched as the ship began it's climb into the atmosphere.

He was mildly concerned when the ship all of a sudden took a sharp turn to the right, but it soon corrected itself and continued on its' way. He was less surprised when less than a minute later, Mandalorians with jet packs took off to pursue.


	4. Chapter 4

**(A/N) Well, I'm back again with another chapter, hope you all enjoy it.**

**On another note, I take some time to explore the ship a little in this chapter and I just want to say that I do not really know what the inside of a Gauntlet (or Kom'rk if you want the Mandalorian word, which I usually use) fighter looks like. I have gone through several clips in both Star Wars Rebels and the Clone Wars. I have also done my best to look through Wookieepedia as well as studied what blueprints I could find to try and get an idea of what the inside of the ship would look like. That being said, I most definitely will not get it completely right, this is just my best guess considering what information I have as well as my own logic to gather a basic idea. Regardless as to whether or not I am right or wrong, this layout will be what I go with from here on out as I am not going to bother fixing it if anyone can prove me wrong.**

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**Guest Reviews:**

**Mogor: Thank you**

**Spectre6: I don't believe Ursa Wren is too terrible, she does want what is best for her daughter, but she is still a Mandalorian and we all know that they a rather interesting lot, don't we? As far as Sabine goes, I was a little disappointed that she and Ezra didn't get together at the end of the show, but I also know there is a right time for everything, which is something that I delve into a little bit in this chapter. From personal experience, a relationship needs the right setting in order to blossom properly, otherwise it can be easily choked out. **

**LethalJustice94: Thank you**

**Master Fan Reader: It would be rather cool, but in ways, there lies the problem. **

**Guest 1: Thank you.**

**Guest 2: Lol, me neither. A large portion of this story still has to be planned. Writing this story was more a goal in improving my character development than plot, which is why I want the readers to help me come up with some ideas. **

**Guest 3: You'll have to wait and see :)**

**Chapter 4**

"Ursa, may I speak with you for a minute?"

Ursa Wren knew that tone in her husband's voice. It was the tone he used when he disagreed with a decision she made and had a few words of advice to impart. While the two of them rarely disagreed, sometimes an argument was inevitable. It was part of the less glamorise side of being married and it seemed this was one of those instances. Though she doubted Alrich could change her mind on this matter, she would always at least heard him out and unless the matter was time sensitive, would always leave the matter open for discussion until they could come to a compromise. Therefore, she didn't hesitate to follow her husband back to the balcony.

"What is it you would like?" Usra prodded once they were out of earshot of her daughter and the Jedi.

Alrich hesitated for a second while he formulated his words in his head, "I feel like you are making a mistake by keeping those two apart."

Ursa raised an eyebrow, not even remotely surprised that he already knew her stance on the matter. "Clan Wren will always welcome Ezra Bridger into our home. He has proved himself to be a skilled combatant and a trustworthy ally in the past. However, I will not allow my daughter to be united with a Jedi. As I told Sabine earlier, the two cultures cannot and will not coexist."

"And why not?" Alrich asked, "Haven't they already proven otherwise? The two of them have been side by side for years. They grew up together, fought side-by-side and saved each others lives countless times. They have been there for each other through the good times and the bad. They have even endured six years of separation that was made all the more daunting by the thousands of systems between them and no clue as to where the other was; and yet, they still managed to defy the odds stacked against them and were reunited. And now, once they finally have a chance to settle down together and enjoy life, you want tear them apart when they are standing less than two feet from each other? Ursa, no matter how much you try and force them apart, those two will always be drawn to each other and standing in the way of their happiness will only end in heartbreak."

"There is nothing going on between them yet." Ursa stated, "They are only friends and will remain so as long as I have a say in it."

"Ursa-" Alrich began, but was quickly cut off.

"No! If Sabine is allowed to leave with Bridger she will not return. Mandalor is no place for a Jedi. I lost my daughter once already… I will not lose her again!"

The sound of an engine starting up interrupted their argument and Ursa turned her head towards the source. To her great dismay, the Nightbrother began cruising through the sky towards the edges of the atmosphere. Anger coursed through her as she realized that Sabine had disobeyed her direct order. "Excuse me please. We will continue this discussion later." She said in a voice that meant there was no room for argument as she reached for her com link.

Alrich sighed as he watched Ursa's retreating form. "I fear that by forcing her to remain close by your side, you may lose her forever."

o~0~O~0~o

Sabine was already seated in the co-pilot's seat when Ezra entered the cockpit. Her decision to situate herself there was mildly surprising as out of the two of them, she was easily the better pilot. Then again, tradition normally dictated that the captain of the ship sit in the pilot's seat and considering he was the owner, he guessed that made him the captain. He quickly shoved any further thoughts to the back of his mind to be deliberated on later and slid into his seat. They were hoping to get off planet as quickly as possible and his attention was required elsewhere.

"How fast can you get this thing in the air?" Sabine asked as she fiddled with the nav-computer. It appeared she was already finding coordinates to jump out of here.

"Left it on standby mode." Ezra replied as he flicked a switch. The engines immediately responded by roaring to life.

Sabine shot him a questioning look.

"What?" He asked, "Sometimes it pays to be prepared… and I had a feeling something like this would happen." He engaged the throttle and the ship began to lift itself off the ground.

Sabine smirked, "Not going to complain."

Ezra gave her a quick smile before angling the wings into the horizontal flight configuration and they quickly began picking up speed in their mad dash to space.

It wasn't too long before an alarm began sounding and Ezra immediately threw the ship into a sharp right turn while searching the skies for the danger. Sabine meanwhile wasn't expecting such a sharp turn so soon and was thrown from her seat. She yelled out in pain as her back hit the floor. "What the heck Ezra?" she asked as she forced her way back to her chair, "It's just the communicator."

Ezra calmed himself and let the tension ease from his shoulders as he brought them back on their flight path. "Sorry." He said, "Just a little nervous, that's all."

"Right." Sabine responded, "Maybe I should take over for a while?"

Ezra nodded as he gave control of their craft to the co-pilot, "Ya, sure."

The droning of the communicator continued to wail throughout the cockpit and Ezra reached to answer it.

"Don't!" Sabine warned, "It's only my mother trying to force us back to the surface."

Ezra pulled back his hand back as a bit of guilt rushed through him. It hurt him to know that Sabine and her mother probably were not on speaking terms again and the knowledge that he might have a little part to do with that weighed on him. However, he respected Sabine's wishes and so he wouldn't push… for now.

The wail of the communicator finally stopped beeping and a few seconds of silence settled between them. Then a second alarm began blaring. The evasive maneuvers Sabine enacted were perfectly justified this time as a blaster shot slammed into their shields. Ezra craned his neck out the window and sure enough, a few Mando's in jetpacks were hot on their tail and firing at them.

"They're targeting the hyperdrive!" Ezra warned. He could see a bit of panic on Sabine's face as she realized they were in trouble. If they did take out the hyperdrive, there would be no need to shoot them down. They wouldn't be going anywhere. What was even worse, no matter how sleek or maneuverable their ship was, those jetpacks could easily outfly them. Their shields were holding for now, but they wouldn't for long.

Sabine gave Ezra an apologetic look "Sorry about the ship." She said as she began flipping some dials on the consol.

"Wha-" Before he could finish, Sabine finished disabling a few of the safety systems and reached forward to push on the hyperdrive control. There was a brief flash of orange as the ship accelerated to lightspeed while still in the atmosphere before the view out the window settled into the familiar blue streaks of hyperspace.

Ezra stared out of the slightly burnt windshield in minor disbelief. "Did you just…" He trailed off.

Sabine gave him a sheepish look, "Well you did say you hated the paint job didn't you?"

"Well yes, but… I expected you to paint over it… not burn it off."

"It just gives us more incentive to give it a makeover."

Ezra smirked, "As if you need incentive."

Sabine laughed, "I guess I don't."

A few moments of silence hung in the air as they realized what they had just achieved. They had done it! They had escaped Krownest and Countess Wren and now were on their own… in space. They could do whatever they wanted.

"Now what?" Ezra asked.

Sabine stood up from her chair, "Now I unpack my stuff and get settled in. Then I guess we plan our next move."

Ezra nodded, "Where are we headed anyways?"

"Ryloth." Sabine replied, "I commed Hera right after I commed you."

Ezra nodded as she vacated the cockpit, "You need my help?" He asked.

Sabine paused as she grabbed the rungs to the ladder that led down to the lower level and the hold, "No. I got it. There's not much."

Sabine took a look around as her feet landed on the metal floor of the cargo hold. It was a rather spacious area that was about 50 feet long, 22 feet wide and 13 feet high. The walls were a light grey colour, but the old lights shining down from above gave them a blue tint. The back 25 feet of the hold was held the ramp that could extend down to the ground while at the front, a pressurized door opened up to the troop bay, a room that was about 85 feet long and was large enough to launch about 24 people out of its bay doors. Usually Mandalorians would just use jetpacks and jump out, but if the mission required a ground assault or was in space, there was a special chair lift system that could quickly deploy or retrieve all 24 warriors at once.

Grabbing the bag of her stuff from the floor, Sabine pulled it over her shoulder and began climbing the ladder once again. On the way up she took a look around the platform of the second level. It was a small area, more of a hallway with two doors in front of her and an airlock behind. From past experience she knew this level held a common room through the door on the right and through the left was a kitchen. Past both of those two rooms was a med-bay.

The kitchen was nothing fancy, a fridge, a stove, some cupboards, a sink and a caf machine, something she had insisted on being installed when Ezra had first acquired the ship. The common room wasn't much better. It had a couch with a small table set in front of it and a television mounted to the wall. Yes, a real television with a crystal-clear screen, not a holovision like most ships did. Both rooms and the hallway were painted in a dark grey colour that not even the old lights could give any hope to.

The med bay on the other hand was state of the art and the contrast of the clean white walls was shocking for anyone who entered. A medical droid hung on the wall in its charging port, waiting for the day its services would be required. A large hospital bed lay in the center of the room and could be altered into many different configurations depending on the procedure taking place. Equipment and tools of all kinds lay sterilized and untouched in various drawers and the med cabinet was stocked full of various types of medicine and drugs. To top it all off, a bacta tank stood in the corner and was ready to be filled at a moments notice should the need arise. It appeared that the old Sith Lord had been quite invested in maintaining his health. Then again, he was half droid. Sabine could only imagine the health issues that would have resulted from that particular problem.

However, none of these rooms were her destination at the moment and she continued up the ladder to the third and final level. The only thing you could see when she got to the top of the ladder was a long hallway stretching to the front of the ship where the cockpit was. There were two doors on each side of the hallway that led to four identical bedrooms and behind her was the refresher.

She walked to the end of the hallway and peeked inside the cockpit. It seemed Ezra had begun meditating while she had gone downstairs. She smiled at him and then turned to the room on her right. Ezra had claimed it long ago and she briefly considered claiming it as hers as well, if only to try and get a rise out of him. She could imagine the confused, but happy look on his face already. No doubt he'd be able to throw out a smug comment at her as well.

Sabine gave a happy chuckle as she shook the thought out of her head, turned and entered the room on her left. Still laughing to herself at her little idea, she tossed her bag on the bed and took a look around. It was a rather spacious room considering this was meant to be a ship for times of war. Then again, a Kom'rk was a rather large ship at 223 feet long, 172 feet wide and 43 feet high. It had the space for large rooms. The room held a double wide bed on the left and had a closet and a tall dresser on the right. This was a Mandalorian built ship, so of course there was an armour stand in the corner. Once again, the walls were painted in that same dark grey.

It would take a bit of work to liven them up and make this place hers, but it would get there. Her mind was already racing with ideas as to how she would decorate her room. The bed could be slid a few feet to the middle of the room and the dresser would have to be moved beside the door. She could probably even replace the closet doors with a full-sized mirror at some point. Before any of that took place, she would definitely need to paint the walls a base colour that wasn't grey, but could still be easily painted over. She could place a mural of her mother, father and Tristen and herself where the bed now stood. She could easily paint Krownest as the background. Then she could paint a picture of the ghost crew over her headboard… Come to think of it, she'd already done that on Lothal. Maybe something more personal? She'd have to dwell on that later. She had plenty to do as it was already.

She began to unpack her stuff. She didn't have much, just her art supplies, some clothes and her amour and weapons. Her art supplies went straight into the closet to be dealt with later. Then she started taking out her clothes and folding them.

The mindless task gave her some time to be alone with her thoughts. For the first time since she'd made up her mind to leave with Ezra, she could actually process everything that had happened.

Her conversation with her mother was weighing heavily in her mind.

_Your loyalty to the Jedi is admirable, but misplaced._

_ I'm doing this because I want to. I just asked him to come along._

_You want to go and fly off into the galaxy with him and only him and with no real plan whatsoever._

_He's my best friend. Sorry if I want to be able to see him again after he's been missing for six years!_

_You've dedicated six years of your life to him Sabine. Don't you think that's enough? Unless you do have feelings for him."_

_"No! I don't. He's just a friend."_

_Sabine, you're a Mandalorian, he's a Jedi. The two cultures cannot and will not mix_… _I must insist that you stop putting your life on hold for him. As Countess of Clan Wren and as your mother, I forbid you from leaving Krownest._

Sabine let out a long sigh,

All that because her mother thought she had feelings for a Jedi… which, if she was honest with herself, she did. She supposed they had begun to develop shortly before she had left Attollon. But then the Darksaber happened, then Mandalor, then Lothal and Kannan and then… he was gone. She'd never had time to be able to admit to herself those feelings at first, then she had never gotten the right moment. They had all been too busy trying to liberate Mandalor, then contact the rebels on Lothal, free Hera, mourn Kannan and finally, kick the Empire off the planet. And then she couldn't… It would have destroyed her to admit those feelings and know that Ezra might never come back, but somewhere deep inside of her, she had always known… She felt a tear leak down her cheek as all those years of loneliness came back to her, all those years of her missing her partner and best friend and hoping beyond belief that one day she would see him again.

She wiped the tears from her face as she began putting some of the folded laundry away in her dresser.

A knock sounded from her door, "Sabine? You ok in there?"

Sabine smiled. Of course Ezra would be able to sense her feelings and become concerned. To most people, that may be considered a little concerning, or an invasion of privacy, but she trusted Ezra immensely and knew he would never poke or pry at her thoughts. "Ya, I'm good." And she was too. Those feelings of grief and loneliness had been replaced with hope at the sound of his voice. She had him back. They could start living a life together, like normal people do.

She paused as she picked up her helmet from her bag. It was a symbol of her people, the opposite of normal. The fighting, the running, the fear of losing someone close to you. Mandalorians were rarely seen without their armour on. It was a part of their identity. They were always ready for a battle, to defend themselves and those they cared about, but they weren't on Mandalor anymore. There was no fight. This ship was supposed to be her home now… with Ezra, the man she trusted more than anyone else in the galaxy.

She took her helmet to the corner of the room and placed it on the armour stand. Then she detached her breastplate, which joined the helmet. Soon, the rest of her armour followed along with her trusty Westars, leaving her nothing but her body suit and cargo pants. She then went back to her dresser and changed into a comfortable pair of pants and a t-shirt. She knew she would never be comfortable going outside like this, she was still a Mandalorian after all, but they had a day and a half before they would reach Ryloth. Until then, there was nothing to be worried about.

She made her way to the door and took a look back at her room. Satisfied that everything was decent enough for now, she didn't hesitate to walk out into the hallway. After all, despite her lack of armour, she was safe.

**(A/N) So, I re-read WestwardGlance's story 'Family History' again and I never realized how similar some of the things I want to get into are. So, I just wanted to recommend that story to you if you haven't read it yet. It is a great Ezrabine story about all of the 'non-dates' that they have while in the rebellion. I encourage you all to go check it out.**

**Also, the Sabine loving caf thing that I added was not my own idea, but an idea that I got from another author, lothcat1138 in her story 'absence makes the heart grow founder,' another story that I am re-reading at the moment. Sabine really likes her caf and her chocolate in that story, especially when they are put together. Anyways, lothcat1138 also has many great stories and I encourage you to go read them and give her some support.**


	5. Chapter 5

**(A/N) So this is a few days later than I was planning on updating… sorry, but in my defense, it is exam week right now. On that same note, there will probably not be an update on Saturday as that is my graduation weekend so apologies in advance.**

**Also, I began writing this intending to have Ezra and Sabine meet up with Hera and Jacen, but that never happened. You got this instead so you get Hera and Jacen next chapter instead.**

**I was also thinking, unlike my other multi-chapter story, I don't have a cover image for Normal yet and I don't really have an idea what it should be. If any of you have any ideas or want to make one, send me a private message.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Sentinel07: Thank you :)**

**Mogor: Thank you and my goal is to update every Saturday. I cannot promise that will always be the case, this Saturday being an example of that, but I will try.**

**Master Fan Reader: Thank you, I was quite happy with that myself. I'm not sure how I would do a flashback of Sabine in the next chapter, but I may be able to incorporate that in the future. I would much rather have a flashback like that do something to further the story rather than just shove it in because I can.**

**LethalJustice94: Thank you for taking the time to review. It always makes my day a bit brighter knowing that people enjoy reading this.**

**Guest 1: Thank you :)**

**Arivedercii: Thank you very much.**

**Achillies453: Thank you as well.**

**Chapter 5**

"Now what?" Ezra asked. He and Sabine had just escaped Krownest and were now hurtling through hyperspace. This was not how he expected his day to go, but here they were and he honestly had no clue what their next step was.

Sabine stood up from the co-pilot's seat, "Now I unpack my stuff and get settled in. Then I guess we plan our next move."

Ezra nodded, "Where are we headed anyways?"

"Ryloth." Sabine replied, "I commed Hera right after I commed you."

Ezra nodded as she vacated the cockpit, "You need my help?" He asked.

Sabine paused as she grabbed the rungs to the ladder that led down to the lower levels, "No. I got it. There's not much."

Ezra smiled as he watched her disappear and then turned to face forward again. Ryloth was a day and a half trip away which meant they still had a lot of time to kill. Sabine would spend the next little while getting settled in to her new living quarters, which left him to find something to do on his own. He might as well do something productive so he closed his eyes, settled his hands on his lap and focused his attention on the force. Soon, his breathing began to slow as he entered a meditative trance. All around him was the living force, from the strong bond he could trace back to his partner down in the hold, to the occasional deep space organisms that they passed by at a tremendous speed. If he focused hard enough, he could even feel the backdrop of the trillions of life forms molding together on various planets around the galaxy. To the Jedi, it was like they were all singing together to create the perfect balanced harmony.

When he was fully in tune with the force, he followed the trails of his bond with Sabine back to the young woman in order to process his thoughts on the last 24 hours. She had been the source of great and confusing thoughts and emotions and if he was to continue on with a clear head, he needed to process them.

Though he had originally brought up a few concerns about Sabine's plan when she had commed him, he had spent the next two hours buzzing with excitement. He had missed her while he was lost in the unknown regions with Thrawn. Sabine had been his partner before he had disappeared. They were rarely, if ever, placed on a mission separate from the other and when looking for one of them on base, you were bound to find the other. The separation had been a source of great pain for both of them, something not even the great distance between them had been able to hide from their bond. The joy they had felt when seeing each other again when Sabine and Ahsoka had found what was left of the 7th fleet was beyond his understanding. He had felt whole again and in that moment he had made the foolish vow to never let her leave his sight again.

Of course, that could never be so, life had a way of getting in the way of his hopes and dreams. Sabine's mother had demanded she come back to Mandalor as soon as the news that the mission to save Ezra had been successful had reached the Countess' ears. All at once, Ezra had felt lost again. He had no master, no evil to rise against or people to protect. Even worse, his family had all moved on with their lives and his partner had been ripped from his side.

Which was why he had no problem rushing straight to Krownest when Sabine had proposed they leave together. There had been no thought put in, no contingency plans set in place or plans made for the future. The potential problems or consequences had been ignored in favour of the hope of a normal life together. Even if they were anything but normal.

The guilt that came with separating Sabine from her family had been one such consequence that he had not been prepared to deal with and now came slamming into him full force. Ezra did not have a family. A real one at least. He had the crew of the ghost, but his real parents had been taken from him by the Empire. He would never again get the chance to tell them he loved them.

Seeing Sabine be reunited with her parents all those years ago had been a bitter-sweet time for him. He was honestly glad to see Sabine get the chance to reconcile with her parents. He was happy for her. Yet a hint of remorse and a small bit of jealousy had awoken inside of him at the sight. Ezra would never begrudge Sabine her happiness, but he still yearned for his own parents.

And now, Sabine was leaving Mandalor on shaky terms once again. There was no knowing what her mother would do if Sabine was ever to return back to the Wren Stronghold. He had no idea what irreparable damage may have been done to the relationship between Sabine and the Countess and the knowledge that he had helped was weighing on him.

There was nothing that could be done at the moment. Sabine didn't want to talk to her mother and Ezra was not going to go behind her back. Besides, if anyone in the galaxy could kill him from the other side of a holo, it would be Sabine's mother. He supposed the only thing he could do was be there to encourage and support Sabine when she was ready to reach out to the Countess again. He would do anything to see her family mended once again.

He had no idea how long he had been meditating for when a string of sadness and grief reached his mind. It wasn't his own, which meant it was coming from Sabine. Though he probably could if he really tried, he would never intrude on Sabine's private thoughts and read her mind, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel her emotions. It was like hearing a credit chip hit the floor. You couldn't do anything about it, the chip belonged to someone else, but you still turned your head towards it. His and Sabine's bond worked somewhat the same. He would never forcibly enter her mind without her permission, but in the rare moment when she let herself become vulnerable and allowed her emotions to manifest, he couldn't help but glean what she was feeling.

Quick as he could he gathered each of his own emotions and released them to the force. Then he got up, walked to the door of Sabine's room and knocked.

"Sabine? You ok in there?" he asked.

"Ya, I'm good." Came the muffled reply a second later. And he knew she was too as those feelings of sadness and grief he had been feeling from their bond were replaced with hope.

Ezra smiled. They had a lot to be hopeful for. Who knows what adventures they would have in the coming weeks and months together? This ship had become a place for them to really start living life, rather than just be swept along by it. The fighting was over. They could be normal people and he for one was really looking forward to it.

He turned to leave when his hand brushed over the hilt of his lightsaber. It hadn't left his side since Sabine had returned it to him onboard the Chimera. He'd even had the opportunity to use it a few times in battle against the Grysk since it had been returned.

The age-old adage that had been passed down by his master came to the forefront of his mind, _This weapon is your life._ For a Jedi, that was true in many ways. They were keepers of the peace, but sometimes peace could not be kept and when that time came, a Jedi would fight to maintain that peace. Bit if that time came and a Jedi was found without his weapon, he would be almost as good as dead. But the Nightbrother wasn't the place for peace keeping or fighting. This was to be his and Sabine's home, a place for them to relax.

He opened the door to his room and looked around. It was a bit more lived in than the rest of the ship, but he doubted it would stay that way for long with Sabine on board. He was counting the days before paintings began spilling from Sabine's room to the rest of the ship. There was a double wide bed on the right and a closet and dresser on the left, a perfect mirror of Sabine's room. The Mandalorian armour stand in the corner held his old scout trooper helmet on it and various other buckets lined the room as well. He even had a death trooper helmet that he had stolen from the bridge of the Chimera hanging on one of the bedposts.

He walked over to the bed and opened one of the small drawers underneath the frame. Unclasping his lightsaber from his belt, he placed it inside and closed the drawer. It would keep until the next time he required its presence. Who was he kidding? He would never be comfortable walking around outside without it. But here, with just him and Sabine, he didn't need it.

Tuning from his bed, he walked confidently out the door and into the hallway. As soon as he did, Sabine's door opened and his eyes nearly popped out of his skull. She had no armour on… at all.

"Woah! Sabine?" He'd only seen her out of her armor a handful of times while they were crewmates on board the ghost, and even then, only a few fleeting glimpses when he knocked on her door. There had been that one time when they had smuggled themselves past the Empire onto Lothal, but that had been necessary. To see her like this with no reason whatsoever was a little unsettling. Sabine had always been the hard hitting, but fun, Mandalorian and her armour had reflected that. It took a lot to get past that hard shell. Ezra of all people knew that. His mind was having a bit of a struggle comprehending that she was indeed in civilian clothes, though the new outfit did do wonders to show off her curves.

"What?" Sabine asked as she reached up and closed his jaw, "A girl can't get comfortable? Or am I going to be a bit too distracting?"

Ezra felt his cheeks grow hotter as he rubbed the back of his head, "Well, I… umm…" he stuttered while trying to formulate a right answer. His face only continued to grow more and more red when Sabine gave him a humorous smirk. She was definitely enjoying this and was actually curious to see how he was going to get himself out of this one. "Your fine." He finally blurted out, "You just surprised me is all. But you're fine, I'm fine, you look fine- uhh… ya."

Sabine laughed and after a second, Ezra slowly joined in as well. He could always enjoy a good laugh, even when it came at his own expense. Eventually, the laughter died down and was replaced with a comfortable silence as they began making their way down to the common area. There wasn't much they could do there, but it was a comfortable area where they could sit, talk and catch up with each other.

Sabine stared at her partner, elated that they were finally together again, working as a team. But suddenly talk was the last thing she wanted to do. Instead, she launched herself towards him and threw her arms around him. Ezra was a bit surprised when he was enveloped by the hug, but he gladly welcomed it. Unlike the one he had received earlier that day, he could actually feel how soft she was as his arms wrapped around her body, drawing her close to him as her head came to rest on his shoulder.

Sabine took a deep breath, inhaling his scent and committing it to memory. She'd hugged him before, but that had just been her greeting him after so many months apart. This was more intimate than before as they both clung to each other desperately. To both of their great relief, there was no one to interrupt or stare at them this time, allowing for the hug to last far longer than the one they had shared before.

"I really missed you." She finally said. She wanted to say more, but words failed her and she decided to just enjoy the moment. She felt safe in the embrace, but most importantly, she also felt loved.

"I missed you too." Ezra replied. Count Alrich had done wonders to alleviate his doubts about how Sabine felt about him, but if there were any still lingering, they were all erased in that moment. Even without the emotions rolling freely back and forth between their bond, he could tell just by the way she was acting. Sabine had never been good with words, instead choosing to express herself through her art and with actions. There would come a time when she would finally put her feelings into words, but he was content to wait until she was comfortable enough to do so.

After what seemed like an eternity in paradise to both of them, Ezra's stomach rumbled, causing Sabine to chuckle.

"Sorry." Ezra apologized as they reluctantly pulled apart, "I haven't eaten in a few hours. I've been too busy focusing on our escape.

Sabine shook her head with a smile on her face as she turned and entered the kitchen, "I could eat too, lets see what you got in the fridge."

"Uh, right… the fridge…"

"Don't tell me you forgot to pack food." Sabine said.

A sheepish grin appeared on Ezra's face, "I forgot to pack food."

**(A/N) Not quite happy with how the whole meditating scene turned out, but I don't meditate, nor am I a force user so I did the best I could.**

**Thank you all for reading and don't forget to follow, favourite and review :)**


	6. Chapter 6

**(A/N) This has been posted before midnight, so technically it is still Saturday... Even if my computer is five minutes slow. Ok, so maybe I'm a bit late. Oh well.  
**

**Anyways, I feel this is mostly a chapter of cameos, but it is necessary for the plot.  
**

**Also, I altered the backstory for Ezra and Thrawn in the unknown regions in chapter 1. Now they never defeated the Grysk, just survived until Sabine and Ahsoka found them and then escaped back to known Space. They did however gather potentially life saving information on the Grysk and were able to get the information to the New Republic and the Chiss Ascendancy. I believe the change provides more room for an interesting story if I ever decide to write a prequel to this and plays in rather nicely to something I want to happen soon.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Lethal Justice94: Thank you.**

**Guest 1: It should be a happy ending. I don't exactly have this one planned out much.**

**Mogor: I will as quick as I can :)**

**pocotokomu: Thank you, I was quite proud of the hugging scene.**

**Master Fan Reader: I think there might be a part in the story where a flashback like that might fit better. I'm not going to say no to a scene like that, just not right now. **

**Guest 2: That would be great to include. I already have a few ideas floating around in my head now so thanks!**

**WestwardGlance: Thank you very much. I was quite surprised to see you come up in my alerts. You were one of the first authors I actually read in this fandom. You and Lothcat are probably my favourite authors at the moment so it's a bit humbling to know your reading this. Please, if you have any suggestions or know of any areas I can improve on, I'd love to hear them. And that was exactly what I was thinking when I started writing this. Its what I wanted to see happen in Canon, but it didn't so I started looking for it here. When I didn't find what I was looking for I decided to do it myself.**

**Chapter 6**

After the Galactic Civil War had come to an end, the captain of the Ghost had found herself in a rather difficult position. Hera was a General in the New Republic. Many people looked up to her as a symbol of strength and unity, but she was also a single mother. Being a General often required all of her time and attention, leaving little chance for her to properly raise her son. That was why she had handed in her resignation as soon as she was sure the galaxy could make it without her.

Hera had since started her own freight business and she and Jacen had flown from system to system, exploring the galaxy in the Ghost. She had actually become quite successful, but busy. Good thing the Ghost was still a home for her and Jacen and which meant the flights between systems were actually quite peaceful. Even so, it was rare for them to actually stay in one place for long. Regrettably, she hadn't even gotten much time to say hello to Ezra before she had been forced to take off again in order to keep to her schedule.

She had really been looking forward to the week of free time she had managed to open up between contracts. She planned to spend a few days in Ryloth to let her father spend some time with his grandson and then she was going to take a day trip Lothal and another to Mandalor to see how Ezra and Sabine were doing.

Then the call from Sabine came through saying that both she and Ezra wanted to meet with her. The request has taken Hera completely by surprise, but she had happily welcomed them both into her ancestral home.

That did not mean she was happy to see the state of the Nighbrother as it entered the atmosphere and began its decent to the landing pad. Jacen on the other hand was more in awe of it than anything else. Growing up he had heard countless stories of some of Ezra's accomplishments and screw ups during the war. Most of those stories had been embellished by Zeb a time or two and Sabine had done nothing to quell those wild tales. The result was the boy looked up to Ezra as some sort of great hero and right now he was babbling on, trying to come up with some impossible explanation as to what had happened to the ship.

"Maybe they were chased by pirates right through a Nebula!" He theorized, "They probably got into a huge space battle with them and took out like 30 ships!"

Hera laughed grimly at the boy's imagination. If only that were true.

It didn't take long for the Kom'rk to reach them. As the wings were rotating to their vertical landing position, she got her first good look at the craft. To say it had been scorched would be an understatement. She couldn't see a single piece of paint left and instead the metal had been blackened beyond recognition. Many sheets of metal had been melted and warped so that the ship barely held its' original shape. Not even the canopy had survived intact. The glass had been blackened enough so that she couldn't even see who was flying.

The ship settled onto the ground and he ramp opened up. Ezra was the first to walk out. He was dressed in his signature orange and predictably, his lightsaber was at his hip. Sabine was soon to follow, dressed as always in her colourful armour.

Jacen broke away from his mother and raced towards the two of them, "Uncle Ezra! Aunt Sabine!" he squealed as he jumped into Ezra's arms making the adults laugh at his antics.

"Hey there kid." Sabine greeted as she ruffled the five-year old's green hair, "Look at how big your getting."

"I'm getting super big. Soon I'll be so big that you won't be able to pick me up any more!" He giggled.

"I don't know." Ezra replied as he let the boy down, "A jedi can lift some pretty big things."

"How big?"

"Very big. Luke Skywalker once told me that he watched Master Yoda lift an entire X-Wing out of a swamp."

"Wow."

Hera finally met up with them, "Ezra Bridger! What have you done to your ship!" She said with a glare in her eyes. Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Jacen shrink back at her tone, even though he knew it wasn't directed at him. She felt a little bad, but this needed to be said.

Ezra raised his hands in an I'm innocent gesture, "Don't look at me, Sabine was the one flying."

Hera turned her gaze from Ezra to the Mandalorian. Sabine on the other hand decided to make her displeasure known by half heartedly slugging Ezra on the arm making him yelp as he exaggeratedly rubbed the spot, "What was that for?"

"Selling me out." Sabine said.

Hera decided to get them back on track, "Of all the stupid things you could do, jumping into hyperspace while still in the atmosphere!"

"Wait, you know?" Ezra asked.

"Yes! I know the whole story." Hera revealed, "Ursa Wren commed me about 15 minutes after you two left Krownest."

"What did you tell her?" Sabine asked.

"I told her I knew nothing of your escape, which is true, that you might try and contact me, which was also true and that I would make you call her which you better make sure is true."

"I can't contact my mother. Not right now." Sabine pleaded.

"Sabine, your mother is worried sick. For all she knows the Nightbrother disintegrated in the atmosphere and she believes its her fault." Hare said.

"I… Ok. I'll give her a quick call. But I'm not going back."

Hera pulled her into a hug, "I'm not asking you too. This is your life. You need to decide how to live it and I can't stand in the way. Though that doesn't mean I can't get mad at you for stupidly risking your life like that. Honestly, even they had taken out your hyperdrive, you'd have figured out how to get off of Krownest eventually."

"Ya, that was kind of stupid of me."

Ezra chuckled, "Does this mean were all good?"

Hera smiled and pulled him into the embrace as well while Jacen forced his way in, "Yes it does. Were all good."

Sabine's stomach growled, making them all laugh.

"Your tummy is hungry." Jacen giggled.

Sabine shot an accusing glare at Ezra, "Well it's not my fault someone forgot to pack food and apparently never re-stocks ration packs."

"Hey now, I was rushing to get to Krownest. Food was the last thing on my mind and if I remember correctly, the rations packs were still there the last time I flew the ship." Ezra defended.

"Yeah, six years ago. In all the time you've been home, fantasizing about traveling the galaxy, you never once thought to even check their expiration date?" Sabine shot back.

"Ration packs have expiry dates?"

Hera chuckled at the pair's antics, "Here, let me go and see if I can rustle something up."

o~0~O~0~o

"I'm stuffed. Thank you Hera, that was delicious." Ezra happily declared as he finished the last of his Blurrg steak.

"It was good." Sabine readily agreed, "Thank you Hera."

Hera chuckled, "Don't thank me, thank the cooks who prepared it."

"Oh I will, don't you worry." Ezra replied.

"Good." Hera smiled, "Now why don't you tell me what you two are doing here?"

"Sabine's the brains behind this whole thing." Ezra acknowledged, "It would be better coming from her. I've just been following her lead."

"Well?" Hera prodded.

"Well we were hoping to get into the freight business." Sabine said.

"Wait, you two want to haul freight?" Hera asked, "As in load cargo onto a ship and fly in straight lines across the galaxy for weeks on end?"

"Yeah… well, we both were feeling a little cooped spending all our time on one planet and we decided we wanted to go explore the galaxy a bit more." Sabine reasoned.

Hera raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure that's the only reason?"

"What do you mean?" Sabine asked.

"I mean I seem to remember a certain Mandalorian missing one particular Jedi a little too much. She even stayed behind on his home planet to protect it when he couldn't." Hera insinuated with a hint of laughter hidden behind her eyes.

Both of the two adults in front of her blushed a little at the comment, but it was Jacen who broke the silence. "Are you two going to get married?"

"What?" Both Ezra and Sabine said at once.

"Well you both want to live on the same spaceship together, just like mom and dad did."

"No." Sabine all but shouted as her cheeks grew more and more red, "Were just good friends, that's all."

"Yeah..." Ezra chimed in, awkwardly trying to support her.

Hera smiled with a knowing grin, "A Jedi and a Mandalorian on a ship… together. The galaxy should tremble in fear."

"It's not like that." Sabine defended.

"But if it was, the galaxy should." Ezra joked.

"Ezra!" Sabine shouted.

"What?"

"You're not helping." Sabine chided.

Hera decided the two had had enough and decided to relent in her teasing, though not before having a good laugh at their expense.

"Anyways," Sabine continued, trying to draw the conversation away from the touchy subject, "do you have any advice on how to get into business."

"Let me see." Hera said while raising her hand to stroke her chin exaggeratedly, "What advice should I give some potential competitors? You're lucky your family you know."

"We know." Ezra replied with a smile.

"Well, you won't get any jobs working my contacts. Their used to a certain calibre of clientele and if they see your ship in the state it is, they'll just turn around and walk away." Hera said. "That's going to be your biggest obstacle, your ship. When its in pristine condition, a Kom'rk is designed to deliver and extract troops during battle quickly and efficiently, not haul cargo across the galaxy. You have a large cargo hold, but most of the floor is taken up by the ramp. That's space that you won't be able to use. You might get a bit of cargo into the troop bay, but it would have to be small enough to get through the door."

"Ok, anything else?" Sabine asked.

"You'll have to watch your funds closely. How many credits do you have?"

"Not much." Ezra acknowledged.

"Me neither." Sabine continued, "I used a majority of both of our credits to fund the search for Ezra."

Hera nodded, "That could be a problem. Once again, your ship is the source. It's meant to be fast, but that is also a lot of ship to keep in the air, not to mention the Kom'rk relies on actual rocket fuel, which will be harder to find than regular fuel. Your gas costs will be through the roof. Then you have regular maintenance costs on top of your repair costs to get that thing safe to fly again."

"Hey, most of it is just cosmetic." Ezra argued.

"No, it isn't." Sabine sighed, "I could feel something wrong with it when we were coming in. The ship kept pulling to the left."

"After the stunt you pulled, that's to be expected." Hera said.

"Any other costs we'll have to worry about?" Sabine asked.

"Other than food and general supplies, not that I can think of, but your costs will add up fast, so be careful."

Ezra and Sabine both nodded in understanding.

"Your best bet is to get a job as soon as possible, but are you sure you two want to do this?" Hera asked.

"Why wouldn't we?" Ezra replied.

"Well, you are a Jedi, and Sabine is a Mandalorian." Hera pointed out, "You two are some of the best warriors in the galaxy. Even if cargo runs could keep you entertained, it seems like a colossal waste of your skills."

"I could say the same to you." Sabine said, "You were a general in the New Republic, now you're a freighter captain."

"That's different, I have other responsibilities," Hera said and gestured to her son, "and besides, I'm a pilot. I was born to fly. You two on the other hand have spent your entire lives fighting on the front lines in an effort to bring peace to the galaxy."

"Hera, were sure." Sabine said with steadfast resolve, "Besides, the galaxy is already at peace. There is no more fighting to be done."

"Alright." Hera nodded, "I'll tell you what, as long as you are both sure about this, this is what I'll do. If you two are able to actually pull this off and come up with a business plan that can actually succeed and turn a profit, I'll supply the funds to refit your ship."

"What?" Ezra gasped.

"We can't let you do that." Sabine said.

Hera waved them off, "Nonsense. I've been saving up for a while and have more than enough for me and Jacen to live off of. Don't deny me the chance to give a gift to my two kids."

"What about me mom?" Jacen asked.

Hera smiled, "I'm sure we can figure out something for you."

"Hera, its going to cost a lot to refit the Nightbrother. Are you sure?" Ezra asked.

"Of course I'm sure." Hera replied, "Its what family does for each other, help each other out in their time of need. I just need to know the funds are not going to be wasted is all."

Ezra and Sabine nodded in acceptance.

"Ok, I guess the only thing we need to do now is actually find a job." Sabine stated.

"I may have an idea about that." Hera offered. "Why don't you run a full diagnostic of the Nightbrother and find out what is wrong with it. You can even take Jacen with you to help. I've been trying to teach him the basics of fixing a ship, this would be good for him. Meanwhile, I'll comm someone I know who may be able to help you out."

o~0~O~0~o

Hera mentally prepared herself for the verbal sparing match to come as she entered in the proper frequency into her communicator. The last time either of the two of them had asked each other for a favour, Hera had demanded that Han Solo declare the Ghost was superior to the Millennium Falcon before she would help. She was certain the scoundrel would have something equally as demeaning ready for her. If only she had some sort of blackmail. Blackmail would make this so much easier. Oh well.

Hera smiled in surprise as the blue holographic of Princess Leia appeared in front of her instead of Han.

"Hera!" Leia greeted, "It's been too long since we last spoke."

"I agree. How is Ben doing?" Hera asked.

"He's been doing good. He's sleeping like a baby at the moment."

"How old is he now?"

"He's just over a year." Leia answered.

Hera smiled, happy for her, "I remember when Jacen was that age."

"How is he doing?"

"He's been doing great. I've started teaching him how to fly."

"Already?" Leia gasped.

"I've only begun to show him the basics. It will be a while before I actually let him pilot a ship."

"Is he anything like his father?" Leia probed, probably somewhat curious about whether or not the force flowed through her own son.

"I don't know, I've been to afraid to have him checked." Hera admitted.

Leia nodded in understanding, "So, why did you comm me?"

"I was actually hoping to talk to your husband for a second. I need to ask him a favour."

"Really?" Leia said with a smirk on her face, "This I have to see. Give me a second." Leia disappeared, but returned after a few moments with a familiar hot shot Corellian at her side.

"General Syndula. This is a surprise." Han greeted.

"Please, I'm no more a General than you are now, Han Solo." Hera replied.

"Indeed." Han said, "So what's this favour I'm hearing of?"

Hera figured a direct answer would be the best way to get this over with, "Sabine and Ezra are trying to get into the business of hauling freight across the galaxy. Unfortunately for them, their ship is currently little better than the Falcon." Ok, maybe she couldn't help taking a little di at Han's ship when the opportunity presented itself.

"Hey!" Han cried out.

"Well at least theirs flies without having to be constantly rewired every second flight… supposedly."

"I'll have you know the Falcon is the best ship in the galaxy!"

"I seem to remember you saying otherwise on Endor." Hera laughed.

"Only because you held those ration bars hostage." Han grumbled.

Shaking her head, Hera continued on, "Anyways, my contacts are not even going to look their way with the state their ship is in. However, you managed to get some contracts despite the piece of garbage you flew in. Any chance you could help them out and get them a job?"

Han stroked his chin, deep in thought, "I may have a few contacts I could give them, but it's going to cost you."

"What do you want?" Hera asked.

"Oh you know exactly what I want."

"I can't, you already admitted the Ghost is the superior ship." Hera smirked, "Try something else."

"Hold on, wait a second. I know it can be surprising to hear, but although it is rare, even Han Solo can be wrong from time to time. Maybe that event on Endor was just such a time." Han said with a confident grin plastered on his face. Leia clearly enjoyed that statement if the mirth on her face was anything to go by.

"There is no way I'm admitting that your bucket of bolts is better than the Ghost."

"Has the Ghost managed to make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs?" Han asked, probably a little bit more hot headedly than was required.

"No." Hera admitted.

"Did the Ghost manage to blow up a Death Star?"

"No."

"There. You see, the Millennium Falcon is the better ship." Han said with a look of pride plastered across his face.

"But, which ship is the more decorated and was involved in more battles?" Hera countered.

"I'll concede you a point there, but that is only because you were in the fight much longer than I was. I still believe we need to re-evaluate things."

"Forget it." Hera replied.

"Well then, I guess you really don't need my contacts." Han suggested as he turned to leave, much to the amusement of Leia.

"Wait!" Hera called.

Han turned back with a hand held to his ear to suggest he was waiting for her to say it.

"How do I even know you have a contact and aren't just pulling my chain? I mean Jabba the Hutt did have you frozen in carbonite for messing up a job. How do I know that all your Jobs weren't like that?" Hera asked. Han was more than a little annoyed at the moment, right where she wanted him. It wouldn't take much to get him to show off.

"Now look here, one does not simply just get a job working for Jabba the Hutt. You have to have a reputation first before he'll even look your way and I'll have you know I was a top-notch smuggler back in the day. I had all sorts of contacts you wouldn't even believe."

"Prove it." Hera demanded.

"Well there was this one broad that I worked with that I did several jobs with. She mostly transported food and medical supplies. There was a bit of gun running or spice shipments off of Tatooine as well. And I did it all right under the nose of the big slug. He never knew a thing." Han said smugly.

"What was her name?" Hera asked quick as she could. The more she kept him talking, the more information she could get out of him before he realized what she was up to.

"Kyler. Kyler Moive. Nice girl, tall blond and feisty." Han caught the look Leia was giving him, "Not that anything happened between us."

Hera laughed, "Nice save hotshot. But the Kyler, you said she frequents Tatoonine?"

"Yep."

"Thanks a lot Han, she shouldn't be to hard to track down." Hera said with a victorious grin on her face. There weren't too many female entrepreneurs on Tatooine.

"Wait." Han cautioned with a large grin on his face, "There is one small problem with Kyler. You see I knew exactly what you were trying to do, which is why I left out one crucial piece of information. You see, Kyler is a little on the paranoid side. If you want her to slow down enough to talk to her, your going to need me."

Karabast, and things were going so well too. "Is the job at least legal?" Hera grumbled.

"Eh, depends on your definition legal."

o~0~O~0~o

"Well, I guess that wraps that up." Sabine said as she wiped her hands of grease.

"So what's the total damage?" Ezra asked.

"Well, the shields took the blunt of the heat, but the damage is still substantial. The shield will need to be recalibrated, after the breakers are replaced. At the moment they'll last about five minutes, just enough to get us inside of a planet's atmosphere before they'll need to be recharged. Most of the exterior paneling is warped and melted. Its still keeping out the vacuum of space, but needs be replaced as soon as possible. The hyperdrive took a few hits, but escaped mostly intact, should take all of 15 minutes to swap out parts. The major damage is on the left wing. Engine one is providing no power and needs to be completely replaced and will put extra strain on the other three until it is. The flaps and airbrakes on the left side will also need to be rewired at some point. On top of that the troop bay doors are warped and are unusable until they're repaired. Weapon systems are also completely offline, but it shouldn't take much to get the rear cannons working again. We'll need new parts however if we want the front cannons working."

Ezra sighed, "Looks like we got our work cut out for us."

"Yep." Sabine agreed, realizing just how daunting the task of fixing the ship would be.

Jacen popped out of a maintenance hatch with his face absolutely covered in dirt, "This is fun, you should wreck your ship more often."

Sabine gave a half-hearted laugh, "Sorry Kiddo, were hoping this is a one-time deal."

"Aww."

"Alright kids," Hera called up from the cargo hold. "You got two days to fix the ship the best you can, then it's off to Tatooine. You got a job there to complete."


	7. Chapter 7

**(A/N) Sorry this is a week late, but life gets in the way sometimes and this chapter was rewritten a few times. Anyhow, lets get on with it shall we.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Spectre6: I personally don't take much issue in it. Sometimes you know your not ready to start something serious like that or it can be a little daunting to take that first step. Well I may have wished for a little Sabezra in the show, I can see why they didn't. With Ezra going into the unknown regions any relationship they began would have tortured them immensely at being so far apart. Now, its just going to take a little bit of them getting used to being around each other again.**

**Sabinewren20.22: Thank you**

**Achillies453: Thank you as well.**

**Guest 1: Thank you very much.**

**Chapter 7**

Ezra glanced over his shoulder to where his Mandalorian partner was seated in the co-pilot's chair. "You know, you could have taken the Captain's seat, right?"

"Really? This again?" Sabine replied. "This is your ship, remember? I wouldn't feel right taking it."

"I don't actually believe the Nightbrother has been registered with the New Republic yet. So, technically, no one owns it."

Sabine raised her eyebrows at him, "You haven't done that yet?"

Ezra shrugged shamefully, "Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that… but in any case, you're the one who actually does all the flying and out of the two of us you're the better pilot. You should be the one sitting here, not me."

Sabine shook her head, "Even if its not legally so, its still your ship."

An alarm sounded and Sabine noticed not for the first time that Ezra stiffened slightly at the sound. She chose to ignore it for now and instead reached over to deactivated the hyperdrive. There was a slight lurch as the blue swirls of hyperspace disappeared and three of their four sublight engines activated. A planet neither of them had been to before stood in front of them. Tatooine.

"Are we sure we want to do this?" Ezra asked.

"Why wouldn't we?" the Mandalorian inquired.

"Well it is kind of legally questionable." Ezra pointed out as he turned to look at his partner.

"So? I don't ever recall the law stopping us when we were helping out people in need." Sabine pointed out as she met the Jedi's gaze.

"Ya, but before we were fighting against the Empire. Now were not."

"Ya, now were fighting a criminal empire." Sabine reasoned.

"As long as we aren't dragged down to their level." Ezra cautioned, "Here the lines between good and bad may become less defined than they were in the fight against the Empire and even back then the lines could become blurred. Look at Saw for instance."

"Saw Gerrera was an extremist. We are nothing like him." Sabine said.

"I know."

They continued to orbit the planet for a few minutes to ready themselves. Tatooine was famous for its scum and villainy and the Spaceport of Mos Eisley even more so. They would need to be careful in order to avoid any trouble and even then, it would probably still find them. Going in unprepared could spell disaster.

"You finished recalibrating the shields right?" Sabine asked as she took control of the ship. The two days they had spent making repairs hadn't yielded much improvement to the overall state of the Nighbrother, but the rear cannons were operational again and the hyperdrive was working perfectly. The shields however had yet to be tested since the new breakers had been installed and the generator had been re-calibrated.

"They're good." Ezra assured.

"Ok. I guess we'll find out how good of a job you did in a minute then." Sabine said as she angled the ship to begin their decent to the planet.

The closer they got to the Spaceport, the more Ezra could feel the greed and hopelessness emanate from the various citizens of the town. It was a beacon of suffering in the force, standing out against the lifeless, barren landscape. He had no clue how Skywalker had managed to live here the first 19 years of his life without going insane. He desperately needed a distraction.

"Shield readings are well within normal parameters. Looks like I actually managed to teach you something all those years ago." Sabine said with a smile as they approached the Spaceport and began looking for a place to land.

Ezra did his best to ignore the planet and instead took comfort in the beacon of light that was Sabine Wren. Of course, she had also left herself wide open to a verbal jab and there was no way he wouldn't take advantage, "Amazing considering how much of an abysmal teacher you were." He prodded, though both of them knew he didn't mean a word of it.

"Watch it Jedi, or I'll leave you to deal with this hunk of junk on your own."

"Hey! You're the one who took off into hyperspace before we were out of the atmosphere." Ezra said with a laugh. "You break it, you fix it."

"Don't forget Ezra, I'm a Mandalorian. Normal rules don't apply to us."

"And I'm a Jedi. We tend to break the rules of normal on a regular basis. We however don't destroy everything we get our hands on."

Sabine laughed, "I seem to remember an Imperial scrapyard falling out of the sky. Then there was the Phantom, a mining facility and I believe I wasn't the only one who managed to blow up a few Star Destroyers."

"Alright." Ezra relented with a grin on his face, "You have a point there."

The banter left them both in good spirits as Sabine found a spot on the outskirts of the town to set the Nighbrother down. However, as she powered down the ship, Ezra turned serious. He knew Sabine could take care of herself, but this was still Tatooine. He knew many here would be more than willing to take advantage of anyone they came across. "You better make sure you have all of your gear and stay close. I know the Mandalorian armour will discourage most of the scum around here, but it would be best not to invite trouble and to have backup if any starts."

Sabine was tempted to roll her eyes, but she could see the genuine concern and worry. She also knew Mos Eisley's reputation and Ezra was right, in a setting such as this, the less of a target she presented, the better. It was true that her Mandalorian armour would dissuade most, but she was still a woman and that could often be temptation enough. She would be less of a target if she was seen with a partner. Besides, the same reasoning would work both ways. A lone individual was much easier to rob than a pair. By sticking together, they would in fact be protecting each other which was why she decided to nod in agreement rather than insisting she could handle herself, "Ok. I will." She said as she reached for her helmet, "Shall we get going?"

"Ya, sure…" Ezra trailed off as his gaze turned to look out of the window. All of a sudden he had a bad feeling about this. "Somethings wrong."

"What?" Sabine asked as she too put all her senses on high alert and began scanning for danger.

"I don't… There's someone out there, watching us." The Jedi revealed. He could feel the presence, but didn't quite now their precise location yet.

Sabine glanced out the cockpit window and got a hit on her HUD display. "There." She pointed out the window towards Mos Eisley, "Looks like someone is waiting for us." Standing out in full view was a man dressed in modified Stormtrooper armour painted beige to blend into the environment. If the shoulder pauldron meant anything, he was likely a former Imperial Commander. "He's not alone." Sabine continued, "There's six more behind those rocks, three on the left and three on the right. And there are at least three probe droids flying around. I'm not sure if their armed."

Ezra nodded, "Can you hack into them?"

"Yes, but it will take a minute and whoever it is might become suspicious if we take to long to come out. Plus, they may attack at any second and we need to be ready." Sabine said.

"I'd rather not get into a fire fight this early on. Can we take off and come back later?"

Sabine shook her head, "Not likely. They knew we were coming. I'm willing to bet they brought something that would deal with the ship. If they intend to kill us, they'd take us out before we even left the ground."

"So, what do we do?" Ezra asked.

Sabine thought for a second, "We haven't been attacked yet, which means they may be willing to talk. So why don't you go and see what they want."

Ezra grinned as he grabbed his own orange scout trooper helmet and put it on, "And while the Jedi handles the diplomacy, the Mandalorian sets up a distraction I suppose?"

Sabine returned the smile, "You know me too well."

Ezra turned and left the cockpit as Sabine watched his retreating form, "Ezra."

"Yes?"

"Don't die."

He shot her a cocky grin, "I'm a Jedi remember. We're different than most. If they try anything, they won't know what hit them."

"Ya…" Sabine said as soon as Ezra disappeared, her tone flat, "Most." She wouldn't admit it to anyone, but this was unsettling her. In the back of her mind she knew Ezra and her had more combat experience than most people their age had a right to boast about and she knew Ezra would probably be fine, but she had lost him once and she didn't know what she would do if she lost him again. When they were fighting the Empire, they had always known they might not come back from a battle and losing Kanan had brought that fear into reality. But now, they weren't fighting the Empire anymore. She had just gotten Ezra back and they were supposed to be living normal lives now, but this wasn't normal. She couldn't lose him. Not like this.

The last thing she wanted to do right now was let him out of her sight, but she also couldn't afford to let Ezra down. This wasn't the first tough spot they'd found themselves in and worrying never helped. If things went wrong, Ezra was counting on her so she needed to focus.

First things first, she needed to get out of the ship unseen, which meant she needed to take out the eyes in the sky. Her helmet had already locked onto the three probe droids and not only told her exactly where they were, but what model they were as well. Prowler 1000's by the looks of it. Small but effective early Clone Wars models that could be armed if modified. Two of them were hiding behind a few rocks and would be easy to avoid, but the third was higher up, surveying the entire area. She would have to hack into it before she did anything.

It didn't take her nearly as long to crack into its frequency as she expected and it took her even less time to disable it's comm link. 30 seconds tops. The droid wouldn't know it, but it even though it may see her, it wouldn't be warning anybody about her appearance anytime soon. She guessed that was one of the good things about being on Tatooine, everything here was old, outdated and probably had substandard coding as well. Easy for Mandalorian Tech to hack into.

With the hack complete she followed after Ezra and out into the hot Tatooine air. There was no grass or foliage to hide behind, so she made a quick dash to the nearest outcropping of rocks while being careful to remain out of sight of both the remaining probe droids and the beings hiding behind the rocks.

She had to take a more circular route than Ezra did in order to remain out of sight, but the Jedi was walking slowly on purpose to allow her the time to do what she needed to do. As a result, Sabine arrived at about the same time as Ezra.

She barely payed attention to their conversation, something about the stranger asking Ezra what he was doing here. Instead she snuck up behind the would-be ambushers to place a couple of flash bangs. When she had completed her task without being seen, she took up a position behind the leader, ready to jump into action the second things turned hostile.

o~0~O~0~o

"Hi." Ezra greeted the stranger as he studied him. That armour must have been scavenged from somewhere he noticed. It was a bit small for the man's tall frame and there was a blaster hole in it over the heart. The shoulder pauldron wasn't standard imperial issue either. It looked more like it had been pieced together using spare pieces of metal the guy had found lying around. To top it all off, the E-11 blaster the imposter had was old and worn out. He doubted it would even fire to be honest. "Impersonating an Imperial Commander used to be a capital offense you know right?"

The voice that spoke was heavily modified and garbled, though clearly agitated that he had seen though the façade "It is none of your concern. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for work." Ezra answered. "If things go well, I'll be hauling some cargo for someone by this time tomorrow."

The stranger looked behind him at his ship. "In that thing?"

"Yep."

"That thing is no freighter and your heavily armed." He said as he gestured to Ezra's hip where his lightsaber lay. "I don't believe you."

"Well, you don't have to." Ezra replied, "Now if you excuse me, I'll just be on my way."

"No, you wont." The stranger replied as he raised his weapon, "We don't want you here, so you'll be turning around and getting back on your ship."

Ezra was unimpressed with the man's display, especially when a single beep sounded in his ear. Sabine was in place and the thugs had been taken care of, "By who's authority?"

"Mine." The man said.

"And who are you?"

"My name is Davos Filch and I say get going." Davos said as if the name should mean something to Ezra while prodding him with his rifle.

"Just relax." Ezra said as he raised his hands in a placating manner. "If you want, I can find my contact and I can prove to you that I'm just here to pick up some cargo."

Davos tilted his head in confusion, "Who is your contact?"

Ezra sighed, "A woman by the name of Kyler Moive."

Davos stepped back in shock, but quickly recovered and shouted, "Take him out. Now!"

Three thugs stood up on either side of them, prompting Sabine to set off her flashbangs, knocking them all to their feet and disorientating them. The three probe droids converged as Ezra ignited his Lightsaber. Each droid sent a single blast his way and he deflected each one back to where they came prompting three smoking wrecks to plummet to the ground. Davos, seeing the destruction and the ease in which his men had been taken out turned to flee, only to come face to face with a Mandalorian helmet and the business end of a blaster. Wisely, he chose to drop his weapon and raise his hands.

"Now why did you become so afraid at the mention of Kyler Moive I wonder?" Sabine asked before reaching over and ripping the man's helmet off of his head.

Shocked, Ezra gapped at the long flowing blond hair and delicate tanned face, "Y-you're a girl." He stuttered.

"No duh, what gave it away I wonder?" She deadpanned.

"She's not just a girl Ezra." Sabine said, "Meet Kyler Moive."

"Look, I don't know who hired you or what their paying you, but I'll pay you double!" Kyler pleaded.

"Hired us?" Ezra asked, "You're the one who hired us."

"No, Davos hired you. Kyler Moive is otherwise occupied… allegedly. How did you even know my name?"

"Han Solo told us." Ezra revealed.

"I'm going to kill that smuggler the next time I see him. There's a reason why I don't use it." She said as she held out her hand for her helmet. Sabine relented and Kyler placed it back on her head, "Please, call me Davos from now on. Its safer that way."

Both Ezra and Sabine nodded. In a place like Tatooine, anonymity could be the difference between life and death in many cases.

"Apologies for attacking you," Kyler continued, "but when I heard that name I freaked out. Davos should have been the name Han gave you, not Kyler. We don't get many people armed as well as you two are that aren't either bounty hunters or associated with an organized crime ring. So, when I heard my name, I thought you were coming for me, not trying to work for me. In my line of work, you make a lot of enemies. Especially here on Tatooine."

"So, now that that is out of the way, what do you need us to transport?" Sabine asked, but she still didn't lower her weapon. She didn't trust Kyler or her men not to turn on them again.

Kyler didn't seem to take any offence and instead continued on as normal, "Well, I need someone to move a shipment of Dilarium Oil off planet for me. If you do good work and don't rip me off, there may be future jobs for you."

"Ok, Dilarium Oil, the 'product' Han told us about. Is it really oil or is that just a code for something else?" Sabine said.

"Oh great, what else did Han tell you?" Kyler asked.

"That you steal from the various crime syndicates on Tatooine and sell the merchandise abroad. Then you use the profits to fund your various humanitarian projects." Sabine answered.

Kyler rolled her eyes, "That hotshot's loud mouth is going to get me killed." She grumbled under her breath, "When Jabba the Hutt was killed, a power struggle began in the criminal underworld as the Hutts began fighting amongst each other. In the confusion, a Nikto by the name of Rinnriven Di managed to squeeze the Hutts out and assumed control of most of Jabba's criminal empire, but was unable to take over Tatooine itself. Various criminal organizations like the Red Key Gang or Lady Valarian's outfit have been vying for dominance ever since, but have been unable to beat out the others as of yet. The threat the New Republic posed caused most of those gangs to attempt to 'legitimize' themselves by starting various mining companies. What they don't let the New Republic see is the slaves they use to extract those minerals, the extortion rackets they run and the various other products they attempt to smuggle under the Republic's nose. My operation steals from these crime organizations, sells the merchandise, which is mostly minerals of some form or another, and uses to proceeds to lend a helping hand to the oppressed. So you will be transporting legitimate oil."

Ezra nodded in respect, "So when do we get started?"

o~0~O~0~o

Kyler watched as the Nightbrother took off and began its' assent into the atmosphere. It had been a bit of a struggle to get the barrels of Dilarium Oil on board as the ramp was much too tall to make loading the ship anywhere near easy, but the pair of young adults had managed to successfully load their ship and begin the long journey to the Planet of Mon Cala. There, the oil would be used in the Mon Calamari Shipyard to fabricate Star Cruisers for the New Republic.

Kyler caught sight of one of her men, a trusted Rodian by the name of Morede, who was hunched over a data pad. "Is everything functioning as it should be?" She asked him.

Morede glanced up and smiled, "The tracker is in place and the bugs have been installed. We'll know for sure what were dealing with soon enough."

"Good job."

**(A/N) A thank you goes out to lothcat1138 for suggesting the name Davos and to WestwardGlance for giving me a few pointers :)**


	8. Chapter 8

**(A/N) Well, here I am with another chapter. I'm probably going to stick to this two-week upload schedule. It allows me enough time to get a chapter written the first week, and then spend the second week editing, allowing me to give you guys better quality content. I believe this chapter was proof read about 10 times, compared to the average one or two times in previous chapters.**

**I hope you all enjoy, I got a bit carried away when writing this one. I wasn't intending the fluff to be a thing but oh well, I'm not complaining. Don't forget to follow, favourite and review. Your support means a lot :D **

**Guest Reviews:**

**Guest 1: I can't believe I forgot about that. I haven't had a chance to fix it yet, but I will. Thank you for pointing that out.**

**Guest 2: Thank you**

**LethalJustice94: Thank you**

**Kaya: Yep, that was a slip up that I need to fix. Also, you will get a bit of a fluff tease in this chapter and I totally agree with you :D**

**Spectre6: I agree that yes, there were several Ezrabine hints in the show. I also agree that there was an opportunity for Dave to go that route, but he did not. That was something that could have been explored, but as it was, the show didn't really have enough time to do it well. The way I see it, Sabine and Ezra were getting closer, and maybe could/would have taken it to the next level had there not been a war going on. War has a way of ruining lives. At any second those who you love could be taken away at a moments notice. For Sabine, who has been forced to leave behind many people that she loved, that was a risk she wasn't willing to take. I believe they both had the same mentality as Kanan and Hera, there will be time after the war is over. Kanan's death was probably a wake up call for them, but a lot happened very quickly for the Spectres afterwards, they were mourning Kanan and trying to kick the Empire off Lothal. Then Ezra was gone. Had he stayed in the known galaxy, I could have seen them getting together. That being said, Ezra and Sabine's story is far from over and I believe we will get that Ezrabine, just not right now.**

**WestwardGlance: Thank you, although things might be a little simple for a little while anyways.**

**Chapter 8**

After checking one last time to make extra sure their cargo was secure, Sabine made her way up the ladder from the hold to the cockpit. She was pleased to see that the black void of space had already consumed the view out the windshield, but her features settled into a slight scowl when she saw Ezra was sitting in the co-pilot's seat. The Jedi turned and waved in greeting as she settled herself in the pilot's chair without a word. She still didn't want the captain's chair, but saying something about it would only cause another argument that wouldn't accomplish anything anyways. Besides, she had a way to claim the seat she wanted once and for all. It was only a matter of finding the time.

Sabine gestured that she wanted to take control of the ship and Ezra gave it up willingly. He then turned to start fooling with the navi-computer.

"So, what do you think of Ms. Moive?" Sabine asked.

Ezra paused his scrolling and looked up, "She seems ok. A little trigger happy and paranoid. She's obviously not telling us everything, but of the little she did say, it felt like she was telling the truth." He said and then returned to his task of inputting the coordinates to Mon Cala.

Sabine nodded. Ezra's talent with the force allowed him to get a read on people far easier than she could, so his proclamation put many of her fears at ease. However, she also knew the truth could be twisted quiet easily, "Lets just keep our guard up around her. I'm not so certain we should trust her yet."

"Fair enough." Ezra replied as he continued attempting to link hyperspace coordinates together. It was like the computer was deliberately trying to mess with him. It kept linking hyperspace routes several parsecs out of their way of their desired course, making it a fight to get achieve the correct heading. "This would be a lot easier with a droid." He muttered. It took him a few minutes, but eventually he got the computer to comply. With a smug grin on his face he leaned back in his chair with his arms resting behind his head. "Coordinates are set, we are good to go."

Sabine nodded, pointed the nose of their craft to line up with the computer and reached for the hyperdrive. There was a small lurch as the ship accelerated past the stars and settled into the familiar blue tunnel of hyperspace. "How long does it say we'll be in hyperspace for?" She asked.

Ezra glanced at the navi-computer, "Well, Mon Cala's on the other side of the galaxy, so depending on how many times we need to stop for fuel, about a week."

Sabine checked the fuel gauge. They still had about three quarters of their tank left, "We should only have to stop once."

Ezra nodded and sat back to relax. It was getting late and they had a long trip ahead of them. He might as well get settled.

"Want to spar?" Sabine asked.

Ezra tossed the idea back and forth in his head, "Sure. Why not?" It had been too long since the two of them had had a good friendly sparring session. It would be nice to get back into the habit again.

o~0~O~0~o

They couldn't put any cargo on the ramp of the Nightbrother, which left a large open space for the Jedi and the Mandalorian to spar. They were both already worn out from a day of pushing heavy barrels up a steep ramp, but that didn't keep them from giving it their all. The two of them fought hand to hand for close to an hour. Ezra won a few. Sabine won more than a few. Both were a sweaty mess by the time they decided to call it quits.

Neither of them were ready to say goodnight to the other however and so they found themselves heading to the common room rather than head to bed. Exhausted, they flopped down onto opposite sides of the couch.

"Well that was fun." Ezra commented.

"Yep." Sabine said between deep breaths while stripping off her armour and laying it neatly in a pile on the floor, "I forgot how fun it could be whipping your butt."

Ezra gave a laugh between gasps for breath, "You wouldn't be saying the same thing if we were practicing with lightsabers."

Sabine decided to give him that, "Fair enough." She said before the two of them grew quiet and just enjoyed each other's presence. It was getting late and they were both exhausted. It didn't take long before they found themselves starting to drift off.

The comm unit began barking at them from cockpit upstairs, waking them just as they were on the verge of sleep. Groaning in unison, the two of them tried to convince the other to get up.

"You should go grab it." Ezra groggily suggested.

"No…" Sabine whined.

Ezra smiled at the sound he found unbelievably cute, "Why not?"

"Too comfortable." She replied sleepily. "You go grab it.

Ezra shifted his position into a seemingly more comfortable one and lifted his feet up onto the couch, "I'm comfortable as well." He said despite the old couch being anything but.

"We could just leave it and figure out who called in the morning." Sabine suggested.

The alarm continued to drone on.

Ezra shifted once again and Sabine felt a foot begin to push against her rear.

"Hey!" She yelped before being shoved to the floor.

Ezra opened a sleepy eye to look down at her, a grin plastered to his face. He had stretched himself out clear across the couch, "You're not comfortable anymore."

"You insolent Jedi." Sabine laughed as she got up and threw her weight on top of him. "Comfortable now?" she asked as she dug her elbow into his side.

"No!" the Jedi groaned playfully as he attempted to shift her off of him. There was a brief struggle before both of them decided to give up.

With a content sigh, Sabine shifted herself to rest in front of the Jedi and stretched herself out along the couch as well. Ezra settled down behind her, his hand draped over her midsection to keep her from sliding off the couch.

Somewhere it registered in the back of their minds that the comm unit had stopped calling for them, but neither cared. They were already asleep.

o~0~O~0~o

Eight hours later, Sabine awakened with groggy eyes and a hungry stomach. She was warm, even though she lacked a blanket, and she was also strangely comfortable despite the old, stiff and worn out couch she had slept on. There was an arm draped across her chest and a pair of legs intertwined with hers.

A blush slowly creeped across Sabine's cheeks as she realized she had slept the entire night with Ezra wrapped tightly around her. A thought occurred to her as she happily wiggled herself further into his embrace, this was nice. Sabine was pleased when she noted she fit snugly against his frame. Another thought occurred to her, this had better not be another dream.

Sabine usually got up early to exercise and train, a habit most Mandalorians had. It appeared that today wouldn't be one of those days. She simply lacked the will power to get up right now and instead, she closed her eyes so she could just enjoy being this close to her Jedi. She could always train later.

Her ancestors were probably rolling over in their graves, but she couldn't care less. She could get used to this.

She laid in bed far longer than she normally would have, but old habits die hard and eventually her hunger got the best of her. Reluctantly she pried herself from Ezra's embrace when her stomach growled a little too loudly for her to ignore. That was easier said then done however as the Jedi only held on tighter.

"Nooooooo… Too early." He whined, his voice muffled against her shoulder.

Sabine giggled, but continued extracting herself from his grasp, only succeeding after a brief struggle. She looked back at the sleeping Jedi to find him reaching around blindly for her. She thought it was adorable and she would have to thank his half-asleep mind for providing her with some ammunition to tease him with later.

Her stomach rumbled again, reminding her of why she had gotten up in the first place, so she turned to head into the kitchen. In doing so she promptly tripped over her pile of armour. Rather than leave it there where they would both continue to trip over it, she gathered it all in her arms and deposited it on the kitchen counter. She'd carry it all up to her room later. Right now, there was a cup of caf with her name on it calling to her and somewhere around here there should be a package of Space Waffles.

An idle thought passed through her mind as she set a cup in the caf machine. Maybe if she started cooking the space waffles the smell would wake Ezra up and she would get to see more of his cute side.

Speaking of smell, she smelled horrible. It was a wonder the two of them had managed to fall asleep together with all the sweat hanging off of their bodies. Hera would have a fit if the two of the had fallen asleep on the Ghost smelling as they did.

Oh yeah. They were supposed to call the Twi'lek after they had finished loading the Nightbrother to let Hera know they had made out alright. That was probably the comm call they had received last night. She should probably call her back before their space mom began to worry too much.

With a sigh, Sabine grabbed her cup of caf and added large quantities of suger and cream to the beverage before setting the Space Waffles in the oven. She took a sip of her drink and reached for her vambrace. There were five missed calls on her own private frequency from her mother, which she promptly deleted, and sure enough, there was one missed call on the ship's frequency from Hera Syndulla. The Mandalorian groaned as she realized something, all she had to do last night was reach for her vambrace to answer the call and then she wouldn't have worried Hera at all. Oh well, its not like she could really complain about how events turned out.

She hit the call back button and set the vambrace back on the counter. It took a minute for Hera to answer so she took another sip of her caf while waiting. Soon, the blue holographic image of an annoyed Twi'lek with her crossed arms manifested itself above the piece of armour.

"Hey Hera." Sabine greeted with a wry smile.

"Do you know how much I've been worrying about you two all night?" Hera pretty much yelled, "You were supposed to call as soon as you were off planet. Tatooine is no place to mess around."

The Mandalorian shrugged, "Sorry, Ezra and I were exhausted and fell asleep."

"Is he up yet?" the annoyed Twi'lek asked.

Sabine peeked around the corner to see Ezra still snoozing peacefully on the couch. His breathing was deep and even, so she doubted he would be up anytime soon. "Nope, not yet."

Hera sighed, "I thought not. You'll have to yell at him for me." Her features smoothed over and her tone became less intense, "So how did you two make out?"

"Oh, you know, the usual. We got shot at, ended the fight, loaded the ship and got out of there."

"I'd say that was a surprise, but Tatooine is Tatooine and you two are, well, a Jedi and a Mandalorian."

"Yep. At least no one got hurt… well seriously hurt." Sabine grimaced, "I hit a few of Kyler's men with a flashbang, but other than that things went well."

Hera shook her head as a smile appeared on her face, "Well its good to hear that you two made out all right." There was a pause in their conversation before Hera decided to change the topic, "Have you called your mother yet?" She asked.

The Mandalorian cowered a little. She knew the wrath that was about to come down upon her, "No..."

"SABINE!" Hera chastised, "Call your mother now! She must be worried sick!"

"I sent a message to my dad, so she knows I'm alright, but I can't talk to her. Not right now. I don't need her yelling at me about responsibility and demanding I return to Kronwnest."

Hera sighed, "Give her a chance. She's your mother Sabine and only wants what's best for you. It will be good for both of you if you call her. You don't have to talk long. Just say hello and let her know your ok."

Sabine sighed and turned her gaze away from the Twi'lek. Suddenly a crumb on the floor looked very interesting. It's not that she didn't love her mother, but Urea could be very stern and vocal about her opinions. Sabine wasn't ready to face her again. Not yet.

"Sabine." Hera prodded, trying to get a reaction from the young woman.

"I'll think about it." The Mandalorian relented.

Hera gave her a smile, "That's all I can ask."

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra stirred in his sleep. He sniffed the air… Space Waffles. Less than 30 seconds later he stumbled into the kitchen only half awake.

Sabine grinned from ear to ear when she saw him, "Good morning sleepy head."


	9. Chapter 9

**(A/N) Yikes, sorry about the long wait everyone. Had one chapter planned out and then I decided there needed to be this one, and then this one broke into two, plus I had a little bit of writer's block for a bit and my normal time for writing was disturbed by black mold. Then I thought I was finally going to get this out to you yesterday and then our toilet decided to vomit up the town's sewage system into our basement during a bad storm so… yeah, problems.**

**Anywho, I'm back now.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Guest 1: Thank you. And I hope that as well.**

**Mistress Malica: That would be another good chapter to add to this eventually.**

**Guest 2: Thank you. Sorry it took so long.**

**LethalJustice94: Thank you very much.**

**Kaya: Maybe, maybe not. Also, I didn't notice the stink the first time. The stink was more of an excuse to further her line of thinking, but it does work that way. Thank you for pointing that out.**

**WestwardGlance: Who says I'm apologising (Imagine that, a Canadian not apologising for something). **

**Arrivedercii: Yes for fluff, no for lemons. I don't write those.**

**Guest 3: I do too :)**

**Guest 4: Thank you.**

**Chapter 9**

Ezra stirred in in his sleep and sniffed the air… space waffles?

He felt the space next to him expecting to find the sleeping figure of Sabine pressed up against him, only to find it vacant. That's right, he vaguely remembered her getting up a little while ago. Wait, Sabine slept with him last night? That couldn't have happened.

Could it?

It had to have been dream. There was no way his memories of the previous night could have possibly happened the way they did… right?

Dismissing the event as no more than wishful thinking, Ezra rubbed the sleep from his eyes, got up, and walked into the kitchen.

Sabine grinned from ear to ear when she saw him, "Good morning, sleepy head."

"Morning." Ezra greeted with a yawn, "I smell waffles."

"How observant." Sabine deadpanned, "They're almost done. Why don't you get the toppings out of the fridge while I take them out of the oven?"

"Sure." Ezra replied and opened up the fridge. He grabbed the syrup, some meilooruns fresh from Ryloth (now he finally knew why Hera loved them so much, she grew up with them), and a jug of milk. Ezra eyed the creamy orange liquid with suspicion. "Why can't the milk just be the normal blue?" he grumbled.

Sabine laughed as she pulled the Space Waffles out of the oven, "Normal is relative. Where I come from, 'normal milk' is white."

Ezra groaned, "Why does there have to be so many different colours?" he asked.

Sabine gave the Jedi a flat look, "Because life would be boring without them."

The look she shot him woke Ezra up a little bit and he realized that may not have been the smartest thing to say to her, "Right… I should have guessed that would be the answer I'd get."

Sabine shook her head in mild amusement and grabbed two plates out of the cupboard to put the waffles on. With everything gathered up, they walked out to the living room where the only table in the ship was.

"We need to get a proper eating area." Sabine complained.

"Why?" Ezra asked, "We can eat just fine in here."

"It would feel more like a home if we did. Right now it feels more like a poor excuse for a dingy man cave."

Ezra took a look around and thought about it. She did have a point. The kitchen was ill equipped and the walls of the ship were dull and bare. The living room had an old carpet which bore the stains of many spilled drinks that the old Sith who used to own the ship had apparently never bothered to clean up. Then there was the overly large Holo-Display, probably the only piece of hardware on the ship that didn't need to be replaced. As great as it was to own his own ship and be free to fly around the galaxy on a whim, Sabine was right, the Nightbrother didn't feel like home. Not like the Ghost had, anyways.

"Ya, that would be nice." He said, "But it will have to wait until after we fix the ship."

Sabine sighed, "I know. It's just so… dark and depressing in here."

"I have a feeling that's the way Maul liked it." Ezra said.

The mention of their old enemy dulled the conversation and the two of them prepared their waffles in silence. Ezra sliced up some of the meilooruns and Sabine poured them both a glass of orange milk. It didn't take long after that for Sabine to become fed up with the name of the old Sith hanging in the air and poisoning the atmosphere so she decided to change the subject, "You know, you're a little needy when it comes to cuddles." She said with a teasing grin on her face.

Ezra froze, his fork midway to his mouth, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, you know, I was trying to get up this morning and a certain Jedi was unwilling to let me leave his side." She said, enjoying the look of bewilderment on his face. "Then, once I finally did manage to extract myself from you, you were searching around blindly for me like this." She said between laughs while reaching out around her to demonstrate. "I thought Jedi were supposed to be deadly warriors, not cute and cuddly sleepyheads."

Unbeknownst to the Mandalorian, Ezra had stopped listening when she had said, 'A certain Jedi was unwilling to let me leave his side.' Sabine had really slept with last night. It wasn't a dream. The thought left him at a loss for words as his brain tried frantically to process his dream into reality. Then, slowly, a smile found its way onto his face as he realized just how comfortable the two of them had actually become around each other.

Sabine gave him a questioning look, but the grin never left her face, "What are you so happy about?"

The Jedi shook his head slightly and waved it off, "Nothing, just had a thought." He said and returned to eating his food. He didn't need a fancy table or painted walls to feel at home. With Sabine by his side, he was already home.

"Care to let me in on it?" She asked.

Ezra shook his head, "Not right now." They were still getting used to being in each other's presence again. He didn't want to spoil things with a stupid comment about what them sleeping together meant. It was way to easy for that to turn into an innuendo that would end his life.

"You know, this isn't how the mysterious Jedi act usually works." Sabine teased.

"What?"

"You need an important moment for it to work, not just any time you feel like it."

Ezra laughed, "That's not it at all. It's just-" The Jedi paused as he tried to figure out the words that wouldn't potentially kill him, "I can't believe were actually doing this." He finally said.

Sabine looked up from a forkful of waffle, "What? Eating Space Waffles or Flying around the galaxy hauling a couple hundred tons of kind of stolen oil to a military shipyard?"

"The second one, although I guess the first works too. But it's so much more as well. This whole thing, living and working together, just the two of us, this is basically the dream for 14-year-old me." He said.

"Nah, 14-year-old you wanted a bit more in his fantasies." She replied with a knowing smirk, "This is far more than he ever thought possible though."

"Hey! You can't say that he didn't at least try."

Sabine rolled her eyes, "14-year-old you was way too pushy and awkward to even hope to get this far."

"I can't be held responsible for 14-year-old me's actions. That guy was an idiot." Ezra scoffed.

Sabine laughed, "You're the same person di'kut."

"I'll have you know I've matured a lot since then." Ezra declared with a proud grin on his face, "Enough for you to chase me into the great unknown and then settle down in a space ship with me anyways."

"Alright." Sabine relented through fits of giggles, "You did pretty good, but 14-year-old you is still an idiot. Now finish your waffles."

Ezra happily complied and the two of them continued eating. When they had finished, he offered to take his and Sabine's dishes into the kitchen to wash them, which she graciously accepted. He entered the kitchen with the dishes in hand and set them down by the small sink, right beside the pile of Sabine's armor. A small beep from Sabine's gauntlet along with a flashing light caught his attention. The Mandalorian was receiving an incoming communication.

"Hey Sabine, someone's calling you." He yelled to let her know.

"Thanks Ezra." Came the reply, but there was no movement to indicate she was going to get up and answer it.

Ezra peaked his head around the corner, "Are you going to get it?" He asked as he caught sight of her. To most people she would look completely fine, but the slightly furrowed brows and her apparent disinterest let him know her good mood had completely disappeared. Only a handful of people had that effect on her, though she would usually force herself to answer it regardless.

There were a few seconds of silence before Sabine decided to answer with a simple, strained, "No."

Ezra frowned and looked back at the comm unit. It was still ringing, but it wouldn't be for much longer. "Why not?" he asked.

Sabine sighed, "I know who it is and I don't want to talk to them right now."

The comm unit stopped beeping and this time, it was Ezra who sighed. Sabine's reaction had given him a good idea as to who had called her. He walked over and sat next to her on the couch. As much as she tried to hide it from him, he didn't need the force to know there were tumultuous emotions rolling underneath her hardened shell. When he offered an arm to comfort her, she immediately gave in and leaned her weight against him.

They sat there for a few moments before Sabine finally decided to open up, "I can't talk to her. Not right now. Hera says I should, but I just can't."

Sabine closed her eyes and an image of her mother scowling at her filled her mind, _'I forbid you from leaving Krownest.'_

Ezra tightened his grip on Sabine in a show of support. She was trembling, "Nobody said family is easy." He said.

Sabine scoffed, "Especially not my family."

Ezra gave a little chuckle, "Especially not your family." He agreed, "But Ursa Wren is still your family. She wont stop calling you until she knows you're safe."

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Sabine asked. "Mandalorians aren't like normal people. I was dishonorably outcasted once already, and then earned my way back. I was forgiven. But by disobeying the Countess, it looks like I scorned that forgiveness to the rest of the clan. To many that's even worse than breaking an oath. To be forgiven and welcomed back only then turn my back on them again. How can I face her? I can't be disowned again!"

Ezra gently rubbed her shoulder to comfort her, "Then don't talk to her yet. Talk to someone who loves you both and who you trust. Someone who always has your best interests in mind."

Sabine stopped shaking as Ezra's words sank in and the picture of someone who fit that description formed in her mind. A small smile found its way onto her face and she gave Ezra a tight hug, "Thank you."

o~0~O~0~o

Sabine sat in her room and steadied her nerves for the coming conversation. She shouldn't be nervous, but this would be the first time she had actually talked to someone in her family in anything other than an email since she had left Krownest.

Ezra had offered to be there to offer support, but this was a Clan Wren matter. Besides, how hard could this really be?

Once she was sure she was as ready as she'd ever be, she hit the call button on her communicator and waited as the device began ringing. Waiting sucked. Sabine knew she shouldn't worry, but little doubts kept forcing their way in. Did Clan Wren hate her once more? Had she been forever banned from entering her childhood home a second time? Would she ever be able to see her family again?

At last the comm stopped ringing and the image of Alrich Wren manifested itself in front of her. Sabine smiled, "Hello father."

"My daughter!" Alrich greeted, his face cheery and joyful, "It is good to hear from you again! Hold on a minute and I'll go and get Ursa."

"No!" Sabine shouted, stopping Alrich in his tracks. "Not yet. I can't talk to her right now."

"Oh Sabine." Alrich said with sympathy laced in his voice, "I know things between you two are a little strained right now, but your mother still loves you. Besides, I promise to make sure your she behaves herself."

"Please father, not right now."

Alrich nodded respectfully, "Alright, not this time. But you need to promise me you will speak to her eventually." He said with a hint of sadness laced in his voice.

Sabine sighed, "Alright… _eventually_." She agreed.

"Splendid." Alrich said, satisfied with the current state of things. "Now tell me what you and Ezra have been up to."

Sabine perked up a bit at the change in conversation, "Well, we went to Ryloth and met up with Hera and Jacen for a few days, made some repairs to the Nightbrother and then got a job hauling some oil for one of Han Solo's old contacts."

"Han Solo, the smuggler?" Alrich asked with disdain.

"Yes."

Alrich gave Sabine a concerned look, "Oh, I do hope you are not getting into anything illegal."

Sabine smiled, "Depends on what your definition of illegal is."

Alrich shook his head with mirth in his eyes, "I don't want to know. Whatever happens, do not get caught. It would be embarrassing for the Clan if one of our own was caught smuggling and we needed to break you out. If you need any help, I can send someone to show you how to do it properly."

Sabine scoffed, "Don't worry so much, I was taught by the best after all."

Alrich laughed, "You and your crew were a bit loud during the time of the rebellion."

Sabine shook her head in disbelief, "We could be quite when we wanted to, but I wasn't talking about them anyways."

Alrich sighed wistfully, lost in the memories of the past, "That was a long time ago, but your mother was quite something back in the day, wasn't she?"

"Yes, she was." Sabine smiled. As tough as the countess could be, she was still a good teacher. Sabine had learned much from her when she was a child. "And if I remember correctly you were right there beside her."

Alrich scoffed, "That was a long time ago and there was a reason why I stopped. That was never the sort of thing I was useful at. I was better suited serving the clan elsewhere. I'm surprised you even remember that. You were so young back then."

There was a small lull in the conversation and Alrich noticed his daughter turn solemn, "Sabine, what's wrong?"

"Am I even still part of the clan?" She timidly asked.

Alrich immediately softened his gaze, "Of course you are. Neither I, or your mother, will ever allow you to be cast out again."

"But I disobeyed a direct order from the Countess and left Clan Wren." Sabine protested, "How can I ever be welcomed back?"

"Only immediate family members know the circumstances of your departure. Your mother herself has done wonders in covering up your escape from Kronwnest."

"What? Why would she do that?" Sabine asked, "Has she changed her mind?"

Alrich smiled sadly, "No she hasn't, but she still loves you. She fears losing you again which is why she wants to keep you on Krownest. Ursa won't do anything that she thinks will tear you from her forever. She still hopes to bring you back, but give her time. She just needs to know she won't lose her daughter to the galaxy and the Jedi. She'll come around eventually."

"You really think so?" Sabine asked.

Alrich smiled at her, "I know so."

"Thank you, father."

"Anytime." He smiled, "I will always be here for you. And so will your mother for that matter. Just keep us informed of your adventures. There's always room for another tale of 'Mandalorian Conquest' in our halls. Do us proud daughter."

Sabine beamed at her father, "I promise."


	10. Chapter 10

**(A/N) I'm back again. On time this time as well. **

**If you're wondering where I am getting the information for the course the Nightbrother takes in this chapter, I found a map of the Star Wars Galaxy buried in the R2 unit I keep hidden away on my computer's hard drive. I'll be following it from now on. **

**Also, I'm not taking credit for name Ry-Taka. WestwardGlance has a better knack for coming up with Star Wars names than I do apparently. (I hate naming things)**

**Guest Reviews:**

**pocotokomu: Sorry about that. I'm glad you like it though.**

**Guest 1: Thank you.**

**Kaya: I'd say they both enjoy the flirting.**

**Mogor: I'm honestly not sure when they'll be married in this fic. I'm kind of just going to go with the flow of things here.**

**Chapter 10**

The trip from Tatooine to Mon Cala was a simple, but long journey across the galaxy. There was a quick five-minute hop from Tatooine to get to the Corellian Run, one of five major hyperspace lanes across the galaxy. They followed the Correllian Run for a few days to get to Denon, where they dropped out of hyperspace momentarily to redirect their course onto the Hydian Way. After another few days of following the super-highway, they reached planet of Brentaal where the ship momentarily dropped out of hyperspace and made another course adjustment in order to line up with the Perlemian Trade Route. The Perlemian Trade Route would them all the way to the Quermia System, where they would finally leave the major trade routes behind and make the final few jumps to Mon Cala.

The Navi-Computer had control over most of this process, which meant Ezra and Sabine had a lot of time to fill while on route. It didn't take long for them to develop a routine.

Sabine was always the one to wake up first. She would get up, check the instruments in the cockpit and make sure they were still on course. After that she would spend a few minutes doing her daily work out and snag a quick shower in the refresher when she was done.

Sometimes Ezra would be up at this point, sometimes he wouldn't. If he wasn't, the smell of breakfast cooking was normally enough to rouse him from his slumber. After breakfast Ezra would wash the dishes and then meditate for bit while Sabine worked on painting her new secret project. Ezra had asked a few times what she was working on, but the only information he could pry out of her was that he had been banned from the cockpit.

When they had each finished their respective activities, the two would meet up in the cargo hold to do a little sparring until it was time for lunch. After that, Sabine would have some sort of chore lined up for the two of them to do. Usually that meant cleaning or fixing one part of the ship or another. Whatever it was, they would work together to finish the job and then take turns catching a quick shower before supper. The rest of their evening would be spent watching the holo-net, reading, or simply talking the night away.

Just over a week after leaving Tatooine and on the verge of reaching the Quermia System, Sabine woke up and started her day as usual. She quickly got dressed and made her way to the cockpit, only to find a problem she knew they would have to deal with eventually. They were almost out of fuel.

It wasn't too much of a problem really. She had already planned for this. It was more of a necessary inconvenience than a problem. They had enough fuel to get them to the Makem Te Fueling Station, which was about an hour away and only one small jump away from Quermia. She had no idea how long it would take to get fueled up and get back under way, but she was prepared for this to be a day long excursion.

Sabine left the cockpit and knocked on her shipmate's door. A sleepy "What?" called out after a few seconds.

"Time to get up Ezra. We have work to do today," She said before walking to the refresher to snag the shower before he did.

An hour later, they were both gathered in the common room finishing breakfast when a two-minute warning chime sounded throughout the ship to announce they were about to exit hyperspace.

"Well I guess we should head to the cockpit," Ezra said.

"Oh no you don't. Nice try, but you're still banned from the cockpit," Sabine chided.

Ezra opened his mouth to protest, "Oh come on. It's been a week already."

"No. You don't enter until I'm finished in there."

"It's my ship," Ezra pointed out.

"Your still not going in," Sabine smiled, knowing he wouldn't push her.

Ezra sighed, "Fine."

Happy that things had gone her way, Sabine stood up and made her way to the cockpit as Ezra gathered up all the dishes and brought them to the kitchen.

o~0~O~0~o

It surprised Sabine just how many different ships were coming and going from the Makem Te Fuelling Station. There had to be over 2000 different space craft being serviced by metal monstrosity with a couple thousand more coming and going to the planet below them. Many of ships were no doubt going to see the Tract of Makem Te, the largest graveyard in the known galaxy. Generations of Swokes Swokes, the creatures who lived here, had been bringing their dead to this one spot for tens of thousands of years. It was so big Sabine could easily see it from the cockpit of the Nightbrother. It shone like a gleaming white beacon against the red planet, guiding the thousands of flocking tourists to their destination. Sabine couldn't think of anywhere else in the Outer Rim where she had seen nearly this much traffic. Then again, most of her time spent travelling through space had been on old unused or secret hyperspace lanes to avoid the Empire and Makem Te was near the end of one of the most well used super-highways in the galaxy.

Sabine slipped into the pilot's seat, guided the craft to the end of the shortest line and settled in to wait. She figured since there were only a few ships in front of her, this shouldn't take too long, but after waiting for 20 minutes without moving, Sabine realized this might take a while. She started looking for something productive to do when her gaze fell to the missing co-pilot's chair. A smile graced her face. Today, she won.

Quick as she could, Sabine exited the cockpit and called for Ezra. There was no reply which meant he was meditating in his room.

Perfect.

Sabine ducked into her room and pulled back the cover on her latest project, the co-pilot's seat. Gone were the black and red geometrical patterns. All traces of the old Sith Lord had been covered up with orange paint which blended to grey near the top. Purple and blue stripes lined the edges of the seat while a grey Mandalorian Skull tagged the middle. It was a mark she didn't normally include in her artwork, but she was claiming this seat as hers and Ezra, as good of a warrior as he was, still couldn't claim to be Mandalorian. To finish off the appearance, a couple of maroon stripes graced the headrest to match the marks on her helmet.

Sabine picked up the chair and brought it back to the cockpit. The ships in front of them were finally starting to move, so she edged the ship further up the line and then began putting her latest masterpiece back where it belonged.

o~0~O~0~o

It took several hours of waiting in line before Sabine managed to dock the ship. As soon as the connection to the space station had been made, the onboard computer of the Nightbrother linked itself to the station's terminal and began demanding all of the highest-grade fuel it could get. It was the first time Sabine had really been forced to grapple with the computers as Ezra was usually the one who fought to get them to comply. Despite her best attempts, it seemed the computer had gotten to the station first and a couple hundred gallons of the stuff managed to fill the tank before she managed to get the fuel grade lowered. Sabine sighed as the machine began putting up a hissy fit at not getting its' way and tried to reverse the change with everything it had. She locked it out of communication with the station before it could.

Ignoring the complaints of the ship, Sabine then set to work purging the sewage tank and refreshing the water supply on board.

With everything taken care of in the cockpit, she buckled her armour plates to herself, turned and made her way to the second floor where Ezra was waiting. It didn't escape her notice that the Jedi had strapped on his lightsaber, but that was to be expected. She too had dressed in her outing attire as well. Every single one of her armour plates were securely in place.

"That took a little longer then planned," Sabine said.

"Well, at least we know for next time. Then maybe you won't wake me up so early," Ezra joked.

"Or maybe someone will learn that they can be more productive when they wake up early," Sabine retorted.

Ezra laughed, "Right. So, are we going to get going or what?"

The two walked through the airlock at the rear of the craft and out into the space station. It wasn't exactly a roomy place. The ceiling was low and the hallways were narrow, but the clean, white walls were a welcome relief from the dull, grey tones of the Nightbrother and helped give the place a feeling of cleanliness that their ship didn't have.

The hallway soon opened up into the station's main business area. A low, arched ceiling topped the wide room that seemed to have no end on either side and various stores stocked with goods from all corners of the galaxy were tucked between the bulkheads to tempt anyone who decided to stretch their legs. The court in the middle of the room had various tables and booths where people could sit, grab a bite to eat or talk with fellow travelers while they waited for their ships to finish refueling. A process which could take up to an hour. Tucked in inconspicuous areas were a few doors that led to the living quarters of the various inhabitants.

"Here," Sabine said as she pulled out two data pads and handed one to Ezra, "How about you take the right side and I take the left?"

Ezra looked down at the data pad in his hands. It was full of various different items they would need in the next few weeks. Food, toiletries, spare parts and paint toped the list. The data pads were linked so as one of them found an item and crossed it off, the other would see it crossed off on theirs as well. "That sounds good to me," He said, "When were done, how about we meet there for lunch?" He asked as he pointed to a booth across the room from them.

Sabine turned to look at the place. It was a small, out of the way food booth called Ry-Taka's. It was a restaurant chain she recognized from her time back on Lothal. It had started up not too long after the planet's liberation and had quickly become one of Lothal's most popular fast food joints. They weren't too far from Ezra's home planet now, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to see they had expanded their business here. "Yeah, sure. Sounds nice." She said with a smile which Ezra returned.

"It's a date then," He cheekily replied before turning and quickly walking off to their right before she could say anything. Sabine stood there for a minute, not quite believing the audacity of the Jedi, yet also not quite having the heart to yell at his retreating form. The slight shake of her head and the smile on her face as she turned to begin her own shopping had to have been caused by the Jedi's foolishness.

It didn't take too long for the pair to cross everything off on their list and meet back up at Ry-Taka's. They each ordered their food and sat down at one of the tables in the middle of the room. Even though the only difference between eating here and eating on board the Nightbrother was the ambient noise from the various other individuals on the station, it was still nice to just be able to sit back, relax and enjoy a meal together without having to prepare it themselves. That was until Ezra began to get a little distracted.

"What is it?" Sabine asked when she recognized the slightly distant look in his eyes whenever something force related was trying to catch his attention.

"I… It's nothing. I just… I thought I heard something," He said.

"What did you think you heard?"

Ezra thought for a moment to figure out how to explain it, "It's was like… My kyber crystal, but not," He said as he held up the hilt of his lightsaber.

Sabine looked at the hilt curiously, "You can hear your kyber crystal?"

"Yes. It's like music or a song that matches me," He said in explanation, although by the look on her face he knew Sabine had no clue what he was talking about, "You remember how the darksaber felt heavy in your hand until you were able to connect with it?"

"Yeah."

"For a Jedi, it's so much more," Ezra said as he opened up his lightsaber and held up the green crystal between his fingers, "We don't pick our kyber crystal, the crystal picks us. The force guides us to the one that 'sings' to us, matches us. The one we can connect to like no other."

Sabine nodded in understanding, "And you thought you heard another one. A crystal that isn't yours."

"Yeah," Ezra replied as he put his lightsaber back together and placed it back on his hip, "I could hear it, but it wasn't quite right; and it was only for a second."

"Weird," She said. The conversation fell flat as Ezra tried to figure out what this could mean.

Meanwhile, Sabine caught a glimpse of something weird over in the corner. There was a man over there with black hair and dressed in an orange shirt. He was staring right at them with suspicious eyes. When he realised Sabine had caught sight of him, he decided to walk towards them.

"Heads up, we got company," Sabine said and pointed over Ezra's shoulder.

Ezra turned to look at the guy coming their way. He gave him an appraising glance and then turned back to Sabine with an eyebrow raised in confusion, "I didn't know this look had caught on."

Sabine rolled her eyes, "Trust me, it hasn't."

The strange man reached their table, pulled up a chair and sat down, "That's an interesting shirt you have on," He said without even acknowledging Sabine's presence, "Not many people choose to wear so bright of a colour."

Ezra glanced down at his shirt and then back at the man, "You're one to talk. Your shirt is twice as bright as mine."

"Whatever," The man said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Annoyed that their meal had been interrupted and at the rude manners, Sabine decided to speak up, "The difference is, one of you actually manages to pull it off."

The man turned his attention to her, "And you…" He said and looked her up and down, "Nice Mando gear. Where'd you get it?"

Sabine furrowed her brow, "Uhhhh… I made it with my family," She said with a bit more sass than was probably necessary.

"Right," The man said as he brought up a metal cylinder and placed it on the table, "And I made this in the Jedi temple on Coruscant. I see what you two are doing here and I'm flattered that you guys decided to copy me, but I'm telling you right now that I was here first so get lost." Then he turned to Ezra and lowered his voice, "Nice touch getting the girl involved though."

Ezra looked at the man with suspicion, "And what exactly do you think we're up to?"

"What, do you think I'm crazy? I'm not going to say it out loud, not with all the ears listening in on us."

"Then maybe you'll answer an easier question," Sabine said and pointed to the man's lightsaber hilt, "Where did you get that."

The man looked at her incredulously, "Probably the same place you two got your gear."

Ezra nodded, "I see…" then he held out his hand and called the strange man's lightsaber to him with the force. A look of surprise manifested itself on the man's face as the lightsaber hilt seemingly jumped out of his hand of its' own free will. Sabine had to force herself not laugh at the fear written across his face as Ezra ignited the saber and a glowing blue light shot forth with a hiss. Just like that, the entire space station seemed to grow quite except for the constant hum of the plasma blade.

"You do realize that my blade is green, not blue, right?" Ezra asked.

"Y-you're… y-you two, y-you're both… the real deal!" The man stuttered.

Sabine gave the man a hard glare, "You better believe it. Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger, Jedi and Mandalorian wrecking crew at your service," She would be lying if she said it wasn't satisfying to watch the man scramble to his feet, trip over his chair and run away.

"Should we go after him?" Ezra asked as he deactivated the lightsaber.

Sabine watched the man run down a nearby hallway to where he presumably had a ship docked. She also caught sight of a couple police officers giving chase, "Nah, he's not going to get far."

Ezra caught sight of the police chasing the man as well and sighed, "I guess you're right."

A few minutes later they saw the officers dragging the man away in handcuffs while another officer made his way over to them. The officer asked for some ID, got a couple of statements and their contact information from them. Then he thanked them for blowing the man's cover.

Apparently, the man, who's name turned out to be Buas Watlaire, was a con artist who had been hanging around the station the past few days claiming to be Ezra Bridger and asking people for donations for the new Jedi Academy that Luke Skywalker was running. Buas had been kept under constant surveillance the past few days under suspicion of fraud, but the lightsaber he carried was enough of a statement to make them think twice about confronting him with their suspicions. As such, they had no real proof that Buas wasn't who he said he was until the real Ezra had showed up and they had watched him use the force. When Buas chose to turn and flee instead of standing his ground, they knew Buas couldn't be the real Jedi and arrested him. They were still trying to get an idea of how much money he had conned out of people and where he got the lightsaber from.

When everything had been cleared up, they all thanked each other, said their goodbyes and Sabine and Ezra finished their meal in peace.

"So, was that what you were hearing?" Sabine asked and nodded towards where Buas' lightsaber was sitting on the table. The officer likely didn't want anything to do with it and decided it was best to leave it in the hands of an actual Jedi.

Ezra nodded in confirmation as he inspected the device. It was a simple silver piece with a small opening near the top, "Yeah. I can just barely hear it every once and a while."

"What does that mean?" Sabine asked.

Ezra held it up closer to the Mandalorian and smiled as the kyber crystal started singing louder, "It means it doesn't belong to me, but it seems to be reaching out to you. Here you go," He said as he offered it to her.

Sabine grabbed the sword and looked it over. A grin found it's way onto her face, "As soon as we're in hyperspace, you, me, the cargo hold. I'm going to beat you into the dura-steel."

o~0~O~0~o

With the fuel tank re-filled, the sewage tank purged, the water systems refreshed, everything they needed loaded on board and a cranky computer system, Ezra and Sabine made their way to the cockpit to get started on their journey again.

"It's still highway robbery," Sabine complained about the price of fuel.

"Yeah. I agree. We should have stopped for fuel when we were in the Core. Oh well, lesson learned, next time we'll get it when it's cheep, no matter how much fuel we still have in the tank," Ezra consoled, though he too was a little put out by how expensive fuel was out here. "Wait a minute," He said as he took a good look around, "What's with the chair?"

Sabine smirked triumphantly as she slipped into the painted co-pilot's seat, "I win."

Ezra took the Pilot's seat with no argument, though he made sure to pout which Sabine returned with laugh. A stray thought crossed his mind, 'This is far from over.'

**(A/N) A reader has already informed me that Luke Skywalker doesn't start teaching for a while in canon, but I didn't know that when I first started writing this so that little bit of the story stays in.**

**Also, Swokes Swokes are an actual species in Star Wars and it is spelled exactly that way, Swokes Swokes. Why it is repeated I do not know, but it is.**

**Don't forget to follow, favourite and review. Your support means so much.**


	11. Chapter 11

**(A/N) Here's another chapter with a little bit more fluff than I planned. Do I apologize? Not a chance :D**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Mogor: She's getting bolder, that's for sure.**

**Guest 1: Thank you.**

**WestwardGlance: Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that chapter. Thanks!**

**Guest 2: Thanks a lot. I was quite happy with the way things turned out.**

**sabinewren20.22: Thank you**

**Guest 3: Thanks. There never was a plan to actually send Ezra and Sabine to the planet, just the space stations above it, but there is a reference to Admiral Akbar in this chapter if you know enough Star Wars lore.**

**Guest 4: Yes he does, and I'll think about it. I'm not sure I really want to send them to Naboo just yet though.**

**Chapter 11**

The Nightbrother blasted out of hyperspace into a scene of barely organized chaos. If the Makem Te Fuelling Station was busy, then the space around Mon Cala was downright congested. The Mon Calamari Shipyards, gigantic slabs of durasteel that orbited the planet's equator and which serviced and built ships of all shapes and sizes, made the Makem Te Fueling Station look miniscule in comparison. An army of merchant ships that might as well have been ants skittering around a bantha could be seen coming to and from the dry docks and the blue planet below. A small fleet of military vessels consisting of a couple Mon Calamari MC90 Star Cruisers and a few other smaller vessels stood guard next to the hyperspace access, ready to defend the valuable stations from any threat that may present itself.

Ezra and Sabine guided the Nightbrother away from the normal planetary traffic towards the shipyards, an action that helped them get a better view of the planet below them as well. A small tempest appeared to be ravaging the capital city of Dac and they were both glad they wouldn't actually have to go anywhere near it. The Star Cruisers guarding the shipyards were another matter, but instead of fearing the imposing vessels of war, the iconic cigar shaped vessels the planet of Mon Calamari was known for were a welcome change from the triangular bows of the Imperial Star Destroyers they were used to dealing with. Even Ezra, who had lived aboard the Chimera for almost six years could still get squeamish around one.

Their comm unit beeped and Sabine noticed Ezra tense a little from the sound. She frowned, he hadn't done that in a while and she was hoping his little episodes of panic were over, but apparently not. She made a mental note to confront him about it later, but for now they both needed to concentrate on the Star Cruiser that was hailing them.

_"Guantlet Fighter Nightbrother, this is Commander Lishire onboard the Star Cruiser Defiance. Please hold position and provide your access codes."_

Ezra, who had recovered quickly from his small moment of panic, reached for the mic while Sabine brought the craft to a stop. A console on the left side of the cockpit lit up alerting them that their ship was being scanned, Ezra pulled out a data pad that Kyler had given them when they had first picked up the shipment and plugged it into the console, "This is Ezra Bridger aboard the Nightbrother, Transmitting codes now."

_"Acknowledged."_ The voice replied. There were a few seconds of silence before the console chimed to tell them the scan had been completed, _"Nightbrother, you have been cleared. Please proceed to Station 71, bay 10."_

"Thank you," Ezra replied. He turned the mic off and faced Sabine as she gunned the throttle on the engines, "You know, it occurs to me that we are transporting stolen goods in a ship that doesn't technically belong to us onto a highly secure military compound."

Sabine grinned, "It's not like we haven't done anything like this before."

"Yeah, but we had the Ghost before. It was named the Ghost for a reason."

"You doubting our capabilities?" Sabine asked.

Ezra shook his head with a smirk, "Not at all. I just hope Maul kept this ship's signature clean."

Sabine's mood soured, "Maul was smart. He knew his way around the Empire. We'll be fine."

Ezra noticed the small storm that was brewing inside her mind and realized his mistake, "Hey, Maul's dead. He wont ever bother us again."

Sabine sighed, "It still doesn't change what he did, the people he hurt. Kriff, he almost took you away from us Ezra. I'll never just be able to get over what he did."

Ezra nodded, "I understand. Maul left his mark on me too. He is part of our past and nothing we can do will ever change that, but holding onto the anguish he caused helps no one."

Sabine shot him a look that said she wasn't amused, "A Jedi might be able to forgive and forget, but a Mandalorian does not. As soon as we get the funds, we strip the ship of everything that is even remotely connected to him. The paint, the name, the carpet, everything. I don't even want a single fingernail scratch left in the wall. Then we start a fresh peaceful life away from all the fighting and the enemies we've made in the past. No wars, no Mandalorian parents, no ex imperials… Just you and me and the endless expanse of space."

Ezra swallowed, "Sounds peaceful."

If the smile on Sabine's face was anything to go by, her good mood had returned, "exactly."

o~0~O~0~o

The unloading of the ship had gone off without a hitch. They had landed in a hanger next to the skeleton of a brand new MC90, made contact with the station's storage facilities, watched as a crew of droids unloaded the oil from the Nightbrother's hold, received their pay and left.

Now they were floating through space and trying to figure out their next move.

"So, can I give Hera a call and tell her we did alright?" Ezra asked Sabine as she was adding up their expenses.

Sabine tapped a few keys on her data pad, frowned and then looked up, "No," she sighed.

Ezra gave her a funny look, "No?"

Sabine handed the data pad over to him, "Take a look at the numbers, between the cost of fuel, the food, the small repairs we had to make and our small cargo bay, we lost money."

"We lost money!" Ezra echoed.

"That's what I said," Sabine replied.

The cockpit became silent as the two digested the information. Finally, Sabine decided to ask the unspoken question, "So what now?"

It took a few moments for Ezra to reply, "I don't know."

The seconds stretched out into minutes before one of them was able to come up with a suggestion.

"Here's an idea," Ezra said, "We could try contacting Hond-"

"No."

"Oh come on."

"No." Sabine said a little sharper.

"Listen for just a second, he and Azmor-"

"You already contacted him, didn't you?"

"Well, I, uh…"

Sabine shook her head in annoyance, "Now that the war is over, I am not working with those morons ever again."

Ezra raised his hands in defeat, "Fine, I'll tell them the deal is off." He was silent for a few moments as another idea formed in his head, "Why don't we go to Lothal instead? It's only a parsec away, we have a place there to stay and the people love us. I'm sure with the new industry sector there we could even find a new contract. One that is hopefully more lucrative."

Sabine gave it a quick second of thought. Ezra was right. The Lothal spaceport was one of the fastest growing cities in the galaxy right now. After the Empire's presence in Lothal had been removed, companies from all over had flocked to the planet in an attempt to get away from the Empire's heavy tax rate. Governor Azadi had done wonders to help Lothal's economy grow while protecting the planet from further industrial contamination, while Sabine had worked hard to ensure that they would be ready to defend themselves in the event of an attack and kept the spaceport free of the usual rift raft that outer rim worlds tended to attract. The result was a clean, robust, friendly, stable and growing economic atmosphere. They were sure to get a job if they hunted hard enough, "Alright. Let's go to Lothal."

Ezra smiled. Now if only he could get the cranky navi-computer to co-operate. It was only one jump though, the computer surly couldn't mess it up this time. He frowned when it tried to send them back to Makem Te instead, "Oh come on!"

o~0~O~0~o

Six years ago, the planet of Lothal had been a pitiful sight to see from space. Dark, smoke filled storms had raged in the atmosphere while the combined forces of fire and machines ravaged the surface. The Empire had done it's best to strip anything of value and leave nothing but a soulless, empty planet behind.

That had been six years ago. Before the Empire's presence had been ripped away from the planet for good. In the absence of their oppressive overlords, the people of Lothal and the planet itself had been allowed to recover. Now, in the place of the clouds of destruction, only the occasional white puff of cotton could be seen and the surface had regained its' natural green complexion. It was peaceful.

The approach to Lothal's capital was everything he remembered from his younger days and more. The gleaming white city was thriving, the grasslands had returned with vigor, the Loth-cats were snoozing quietly while the Loth-wolves howled at the twin moons in high the night sky.

It was good to be home again.

Sabine set the ship down in the area next to Ezra's tower and powered it down. For the first time in a couple of weeks, everything was absolutely silent. There was no buzz of machinery, no hum of hyperspace, no chatter in the background, just peace and quiet.

Sabine yawned, breaking them out of the spell of quiet relaxation. "Well, time to go to bed I guess, " She said as she got up to go get her pyjamas. She paused in the doorway when she realized that Ezra wasn't following.

"What's the matter?" She asked, "Aren't you coming?"

Ezra smiled cheekily, "One bed. Remember?"

Sabine's cheeks flushed as she remembered their earlier dilemma when Ezra had first come back to from the Unknown Regions. That being said, this was his tower and she hated to think she was displacing the Jedi from his own home.

She was just about to offer to stay in the ship and let him sleep in the tower when Ezra beat her to it, "Don't worry about me," He said, "I'll be fine. Go get a good night sleep."

Of course he would be the gentlemen and offer her the bed, but it still didn't seem right, "What if…" She said a little timidly, "What if we share?"

A look of shock and confusion found its' way onto Ezra's face, "W-what?" he asked.

The look on his face caused Sabine to laugh, "What's the matter Jedi? Afraid to spend the night next to a Mandalorian? Or maybe it's because I'm a girl?" she said, surprised at her own boldness.

Ezra gapped like fish, trying to figure out the proper response.

"Come on Ezra, it's not like it hasn't happened before," Sabine said.

"Yeah, but that was on a couch and we were tired and just fell asleep and it was an accident…"

Sabine rolled her eyes, "It will be fine. I trust you. Now come on, it's late."

Ezra hesitatingly followed Sabine out of the cockpit and gathered up his own sleep wear, then the two of them left the ship and rode an elevator to the top of the tower. Neither said a word the whole trip up, both of them too lost in their thoughts for conversation. They each took turns in the refresher putting their PJ's on and then met in the bedroom.

They both stared at the double wide bed, knowing the implication of sharing a bed together. Neither quite believing this would change anything and yet both secretly hoping it would.

Sabine was the first to make a move. She pulled the covers back and jumped in. When Ezra still hesitated, she patted the empty spot next to her in invitation, "Don't worry, I don't bite."

"Yeah, but you kick and punch and blow things up," Ezra quipped.

Sabine shrugged, "True, but only people I don't like get hurt. You're safe."

Ezra shook his head in amusement and sat down on the edge of the bed. With a smile he reached over and shut a nearby lamp off, plunging the room into darkness.

Sabine could still see he was reluctant to actually lay down and gently grabbed his shoulder to pull him to bed. He gave in easily enough and soon they were both cuddling together with their feet intertwined and Sabine's arms hugged around Ezra's stomach.

Sabine's breath was hot on the back of his neck and oddly comforting, "See, this isn't so bad," she said and then playfully began playing with his abs. It was then that Ezra noticed he had a bit of an issue down below. Thank the Force he was the little spoon.

o~0~O~0~o

Several Light years away, Kyler Moive put down her headset with a smile when she was sure Ezra and Sabine wouldn't be coming back to the Nightbrother. The two were cute together and she was really starting to like them. From what she heard of the two, it appeared they could be trusted, though their connection to Maul was definitely a red flag. Anybody who interacted with that monster in any way was never fully above suspicion.

There was a knock on her door and she turned to see who it was. It was Morede. She smiled and invited the Rhodian in. She was about to offer him some water, but froze when he raised a blaster at her, a sinister grin on his green face. She scrambled to her feet and reached for the gun on her belt. Morede fired his blaster at her feet, a clear warning to not do anything foolish, "Ah, ah, ah," He said, "take a seat and keep your hands where I can see them."

"What's this about?" she asked as she sat back down behind the table.

"Nothing personal, just business," Morede replied, "Now take off your belt and hand it to me. No sudden moves."

"Why are you doing this? I trusted you!" She yelled as she began taking off her belt. She wondered if she could draw her blaster and shoot the Rhodian before he got a shot off, but she doubted it.

"Yelling is not going to help, those who haven't been bought off or scared away have already been killed. But to answer your question, it's simple really, I was offered money. Lots and lots of money to turn you into the real David Filch and dismantle your entire operation."

"You disgust me," Kyler spat as she handed her belt over to him. She eyed the blaster attached to it longingly, but was forced to let it go.

Morede didn't seem to care as he ripped the belt out of her hands, "Did you really think the syndicates would just let you keep stealing from them?"

"No," she admitted, "I just thought I could stay ahead of them." She said, a little put out that he had managed to work his way around the various bugs and spies she had in the camp.

Morede laughed and then tossed a pair of restraints to her, "Put these on," he demanded. Kyler caught the restraints and clipped it on one of her wrists. She was forced to lower her hands to do so and they disappeared under the table for just a second. A second was all she needed. When her hands reappeared, a blaster appeared with them.


	12. Chapter 12

**(A/N) Sorry about this being late. I knew it was going to be when I posted the last chapter, but I forgot to inform you guys.**

**Also, I recently stumbled across a few stories that I would be happy to recommend to anyone looking for lesser known, but will written fics. The first if called 'Fated to Be' by Florafawn. It is a story about Maul getting his hands on his apprentice, but the slow decent into the darkside and desperation of the ghost crew is well done. Florafawn's use of the first-person point of view in the story is also done in a way that I haven't seen any other author on here perfect. I'm honestly surprised by the low number of follows and favorites the story has. The second story that I read recently and really enjoyed is called 'Vigil of Malachor' by WestwardGlance. I avoided it for a while mostly because I didn't think it would be my cup of tea considering I came to the Rebels section looking for Ezrabine, but there were a few mentions of it in a writers group chat that I'm in and so my curiosity was piqued and I eventually took a look at it. I can truly say that it isn't anything like what I expected. WestwardGlance truly shows off some of the best of his writing skills there and I would encourage you all to take a read though of it.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Mogor: I'm glad you liked it.**

**KyoshiWarrior1997: Thank you.**

**WestwardGlance: I didn't plan it that way. I kind of wrote myself into a corner with a previous chapter and so I figured, "Why not?"**

**Mistress Malica: Nope, you are not correct... yet. We'll see what happens in the far off future.**

**Guest 1: Thank you.**

**Guest 2: Yes, there's more fluff. Lots of fluff.**

**CheeseMuffinChizzit: Thank you very much. I am a Christian so smut is not something I'll ever delve into. Also, for the reord, I'm enjoying this story a lot more than Disturbed Reflections as well.**

**Guest 3:Thank you.**

**Chapter 12**

A small, metal sphere bounced its way out of the tent and rolled to a stop at the feet of a group of Morede's thugs. It detonated, vaporizing anyone standing within a 10-foot radius and destroying the tent.

Kyler Moive survived by hiding behind the desk she had specially designed for this type of contingency.

As soon as the blast wave had settled down, she was running, a DLT-20A blaster rifle in her hands and gunning down anyone she saw. In the confusion she managed to make it to a nearby speeder bike and took off into the night. Somebody managed to fire off a few shots at her retreating form, but the farther away she got, the harder she became to hit.

She had taken nothing with her but the clothes on her back and the rifle. Her Davos Filch disguise, food, water, everything was back at the camp, but she did have an emergency stash of basic survival equipment in a cave about 30 kilometers to the east, so that was where she headed.

Unlike Tatooine's blistering daytime, the night was frigid. She was shivering by the time she parked her bike beside the bush she had hidden her stash behind, but still waited a few moments before entering the cave to make sure no one had followed her. The night was silent in the shadow of the moon save for a single cry of a far off tusken raider. Nothing moved.

At last satisfied that there was no immediate danger, she walked her bike into the cave and then checked out her gear. There was a few gallons of fuel, enough to get her to Mos Eisley, a couple hundred peggats, a few ration bars, a flask of water, a spare E-11 blaster with some ammunition, a radio, a small electric heater and two sets of clothes, a simple tunic for the day and a heavy cloak for the night.

She put the cloak on, pulled it close around her and then turned on the heater to warm up quickly.

She slowly sank down to the floor as she pondered her next move. Morede had been one of her most trusted people. They had worked together for years. He knew a large majority of her activities and many of the people she had any sort of contact with. It was likely that anyone she had worked with was either compromised or dead.

In the morning she'd be making a lot of calls. Right now, she needed to rest.

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra slowly blinked open his eyes as sunlight streamed in through the open window bringing with it the smell of the open grassland. There was a weight on his chest. Somehow in the night He'd ended up on his back with Sabine curled up around his chest, her head nestled into his shoulder. Her shallow breaths conveyed she was still asleep and he took this opportunity just to enjoy the moment. He couldn't remember the last time he had woken up before her.

The way the air moved softly through the room, the sound of their breathing, seeing Sabine with bed head and feeling her against his side… this was perfect and he wanted to wake up like this everyday.

It didn't take too long for his arm to start falling asleep. He tried to slowly shift it to get some feeling back. Much to his disappointment, the movement was enough to make Sabine stir and open her eyes. After stretching and letting out a big yawn, she noticed Ezra was awake as well. "Good morning Ezra," she smiled.

"Good morning." Ezra beamed and hugged her closer, "I'm so glad you're back in my life."

Sabine returned the hug, "Me too," She said. She wanted to say more. This would be the perfect time, just the two of them, alone, comfortable together, both obviously expressing their feelings through their actions, the perfect moment was now. All she needed to do was say three simple words, but her nerves were getting the better of her. Why was this so hard?

'Alright, here I go,' she thought as she sucked in a deep breath of air to calm her nerves,

"Well, I suppose we should get the day started," Ezra said as he sat up and threw the covers back, "We got a busy day today if we want to get a new contract."

"Yeah," Sabine replied with a hint of disappointment hidden in her voice as she watched him get up and go to the closet.

Ezra opened the door, grabbed an orange shirt and pair a pants and began to leave to go get changed.

"Wait, what is that?" Sabine asked as she pointed to a shirt that didn't fit in with the rest.

Ezra glanced to where she was pointing and saw a grey uniform. He grabbed it and pulled it out, revealing the uniform of an Imperial Officer, "This?" he asked, "I wore this while I was on board the Chimera. It may not have been the most comfortable or stylish, but it helped the Imperials feel more comfortable around a Jedi if I looked like one of them."

Sabine frowned, "Get rid of it."

"What? Why?"

"Because we're done with Imperials and wars and all that nonsense. Were at peace now Ezra and I for one am ready for it. That uniform has no use now." She said and then got up and walked out of the room, presumably to grab some clothes from the ship.

Ezra stood there stunned for a bit by her little outburst. He looked down at the uniform. She did have a bit of a point; the uniform had no use now.

He was about to throw it away when he felt something hard in the breast pocket. He frowned and felt pulled out a metal cylinder. It was a code cylinder. Grand Admiral Thrawn's by the looks of it. Ezra held it up in thought. Why would Thrawn's cylinder end up in his uniform. The Grand Admiral had always made it a point to keep it on him, even after the 7th fleet had renounced its allegiance to the Empire. In fact, the only time it had left his pocket was when…

Ezra's eyes widened in realization. Every once and a while, they had received a weak signal of apparent Imperial origin. Thrawn had used his codes to try and lure whatever it was toward them, but no hyperspace routes had been mapped between the 7th fleet and the source.

Grand Admiral Thrawn's involvement in the Empire and the greater galaxy as a whole was done and over with. He was back with the Chiss now protecting his home world. Ezra on the other hand was still living in the known galaxy and could still contact whatever it was that was out there. Plus, he was living in an old communication tower that was able to broadcast deep into space…

He dropped the uniform and left it forgotten on the floor. He had a mystery to solve.

o~0~O~0~o

It was an hour before Sabine, dressed in her full set of amour, decided to come back into the tower. She brought an apology with her, "I'm sorry for blowing up at you Ezra, you didn't deserve it."

Ezra turned from the communication console in surprise. Sabine rarely apologized, "What did you say?" He asked.

Sabine chuckled, "Oh no, you heard me the first time and I'm not saying it again so you better commit it to memory."

Ezra laughed as he got up and walked over to her. That sounded more like the Sabine he knew.

"What were you up to?" Sabine asked.

"Nothing much, just checking up on an old hunch. Nothing special."

"Alright," Sabine shrugged, "Why don't we go see Ryder and see if he has any contacts we can exploit."

Ezra smiled, "Sounds good."

They both took an elevator to the ground level and hopped on a speeder bike. There was only one, so Sabine drove while Ezra wrapped his arms around her middle.

As they sped away from the tower, they were lucky enough to have a couple loth-wolves join them for a game of chase. The two happily obliged the wolves and made a few winding detours back and forth across the plains, laughing the whole time, before finally arriving at the sprawling white city.

It took them a few minutes to make their way down the winding streets and arrive at the Lothal Government Tower, which had been built in the center of the city, right over the site of the old Imperial Dome. It had been an enjoyable ride. The streets were quiet, clean and smooth, the air was fresh, and the sun was high in the cloudless sky. They parked the bike right out front of the tower and rode an elevator up to Ryder's office. They didn't have an appointment, so they didn't take up too much of his time. They gave a quick greeting, got some names and numbers of a few businesses, promised to join Ryder for a meal sometime and then said their goodbyes. They were in and out in less than 20 minutes.

"Well, what do we do now?" Ezra asked as they began strolling over to their bike. They still had several hours of daylight left and it seemed like a waste not to enjoy it.

"Why don't we just leave the bike here for now and go for a walk?" Sabine suggested, "There's a park not too far from here."

Ezra smiled, "Sure. I think I know the one you're talking about, but I haven't been there yet."

They walked side by side, enjoying the gentle breeze that drifted through the city streets until they arrived at their destination. A sign stood at the beginning of a winding path through the park.

_The Way Of The Force_

_Dedicated to the members of the Ghost Crew and the many freedom fighters that fought to liberate Lothal from Imperial control._

"I always hated coming here when you were gone." Sabine said as they entered.

Ezra looked at her surprised, "Why was that?"

"It hurt too much. I'm glad your back."

Ezra smiled and wrapped an arm around her to pull her close, "I'm glad I'm back too."

They continued their walk and enjoyed their time together. There were several trees, a couple ponds and the occasional bird or loth-squirrel scurrying about. The place felt alive.

Ahead of them sat the statue of a trotting loth-wolf on the side of the path. They stopped when they got there and read the plaque,

_Loth-Wolves_

_Thought to be extinct for over a hundred years, Loth-Wolves made a comeback just before the liberation of Lothal and played an instrumental role in the coming battle. Possessing a deep connection with the Force, they worked with the Jedi to fight Imperial occupation. Today, Loth-Wolves can once again be seen from time to time, roaming the plains and traversing the mountains._

They continued on and found another statue around the bend, this time of Ezra himself.

_Ezra Bridger_

_The Hero of Lothal_

_The son of the late Ephraim and Mira Bridger, Ezra Bridger grew up as a beggar on the streets of Lothal after his parents were taken by the Empire. He would eventually be picked up by the crew of the Ghost and trained as a Jedi by Kanan Jarrus. After struggling abroad for many years against the Empire, he would return to his home planet in 0BBY to fight for the planet's liberation. In a final confrontation with Grand Admiral Thrawn, he would end up disappearing into the unknown regions, taking with him Thrawn, the Chimera and the rest of the Imperial 7th Fleet blockading the planet. Thanks to his sacrifice, the remaining freedom fighters were able to successfully liberate the planet. You will always be remembered._

Ezra laughed at the inscription, "I think they need to update this."

Sabine punched him playfully, "Hey, it was touching."

The two young adults moved on through the park. There were a few more statues that they came across, one for Sabine, one for Hera, one for Zeb and a few others who had been there during Lothal's liberation, like Mart and Vizago. Even Hondo had his own statue. There were also a few works of art scattered around, a few of the Ghost and its' crew, some loth-wolves and lothcats, purgil, Empire ships in various states of disrepair and one abstract painting that had been entitled, 'The Force'. For the life of him Ezra couldn't figure out how the various colours and lines were supposed to represent the force and Sabine's best guess was the artist had just painted at random, letting 'the force' paint. Near the end of the path there was a monument dedicated to everyone who had lost their lives in the fight for freedom.

When they reached the other side of the park, Ezra felt a disturbance in the force as they approached a ruin that had apparently been left behind in the clean up, "This is where it happened, isn't it?"

"Yes."

The twisted wreckage of the fuel tank Kanan Jarus had died on was still there. A small garden had been planted around it. Ezra could still feel his master's presence and in his mind's eye, he could once again see him, could feel the heat as fire enveloped the Jedi and hear the desperate cry of Hera as she called out desperately for her lover. Through his bond with Sabine, he could tell she was reliving the same moment as well, and so he brought her in close for a comforting hug.

_Kanan Jarus_

_Jedi Knight_

_Lothal owes a great debt to the Jedi Knight known as Kanan Jarus. A survivor of the Jedi Purges, Kanan would find a home on the ship known as the Ghost. He was a mentor, a father, a friend and a hero. After successfully rescuing his love, Hera Syndulla, from the clutches of the Empire, Kanan would meet his death on this very spot when the Empire, in a desperate move to kill the Jedi, would blow up its' own fuel depot, thus halting work on their Tie Defender project and dealing a major blow to the Empire. He died doing what he did best, fighting for what is right and protecting those he loved._

"I miss him," Sabine said while burying her head in Ezra's shoulder.

"I do too," Ezra replied, "I can still feel him sometimes, especially here."

"What do you feel?"

Ezra thought for a minute, "I feel him, and I feel his death. There's an empty void where my master should be. But I also feel love and life. It's in the trees and flowers planted for him. It's the people who come to visit and pay their respects. It's in you and me, and it's in the way that he died, giving us our life because he loved us."

Sabine smiled, "That sounds nice."

Ezra returned the gesture. It did sound nice.

"Ezra?"

"Yes?"

"Our life is bound to be full of danger. Don't you dare die on me. Losing you once was bad enough. I can't lose you again."

"I'll try my best."

Sabine chuckled, "Do or do not. There is no try," she replied, earning a laugh from the Jedi.

The two stood there for a while, embracing each other and remembering Kanan Jarus for who he had been. Both could swear they felt another set of arms around them.

**(A/N) So a little credit where credit is due. Kanan's memorial is a little nod to RagnarDanneskjol'd "Crumbling" and SweetSinger2010's "After Everything," but I only got the idea to do this after a guest reviewer (Who's comment for the life of me I can't find right now) gave me the suggestion. So if you want your ideas to be featured in this story, don't forget to leave a review and pitch your ideas. Your support means everything.**


	13. Chapter 13

**(A/N) So I mentioned this seen last chapter. WestwardGlance wanted me to include it then, but I felt the change of tone was a little too much for one chapter, so I almost didn't write it at all. West made enough of an argument for it though that I decided to give it a try, and now I'm really glad I did.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Guest 1: Thank you.**

**HistoryObsessedSciFiNerd16: I don't know, I'm that hopeless so… Also, no problem. I will never do smut.**

**Robertbowles100: Thank you very much.**

**sabinewren20.22: thank you**

**Achillies453: Thanks. I had fun making those inscriptions. **

**Guest 2: That will be something that will be found out next chapter.**

**Chapter 13**

For the second day in a row, Ezra was blessed to wake up with Sabine curled UP against his side. Her head was nestled right underneath his, her dark brown and purple bangs an inch below his chin. He had the sudden urge to kiss the top of her head. He wouldn't of course. He was pretty much certain she had feelings for him now, but memories of his awkward past attempts to win Sabine over and the resulting rejections kept him from pushing now. Besides, she was already awake and there would be no way he would be able to get away with it without her noticing.

"Good morning Sabine."

"Good morning."

Ezra stretched and let out a groan as his muscles strained, then snuggled back into the pillows and Sabine.

"I bet you're glad to be back at home in your own bed and not on an ISD's bunk."

"You have no idea," Ezra smiled teasingly, "There weren't any pretty girls in my bunk on the Chimera," Ok, maybe he could push it a little.

Sabine laughed and gave him playful shove, which Ezra returned with a laugh of his own.

"I could stay like this all day," he said when they had settled down.

"Mmmmm… Me too," Sabine agreed, "But we can't," She sighed, "I noticed a small puddle of fuel on the ground near the Nightbrother when we got back last night, and we still need to call around and see if anyone has a job for us."

Ezra sighed, "I guess we better get the day started with then."

Sabine threw back the covers, got up and immediately regretted it. Dressed in only her night shirt and pyjama shorts she suddenly got a chill without Ezra's body heat to cuddle up against. She ignored the instinct to climb back into bed and instead grabbed some clothes and went to go get changed. "You better go and use the refresher while you can," She said before she closed the door, "I'm going to go do my morning workout before I miss out on it for the second day in a row."

Ezra smiled at her as she left, then he too got up to begin his day.

An hour and a half later they were both freshly showered, dressed and had finished their breakfast.

"So, where do we start?" Ezra asked as he sipped at the last of his caf.

"It will probably be better if we split up the jobs. I can start working on the Nightbrother if you want to start calling around and see if anybody needs their junk hauled across the galaxy."

Ezra laughed, "Sounds good to me."

They stood up, washed the dishes quickly and then set to work. Sabine disappeared down the Turbo lift to go figure out what was wrong with the Nightbrother while Ezra went upstairs to man the comm lines.

He pulled out the list that Ryder had provided and called the company at the top, Amos' Sprocket Emporium. He was greeted by the hologram of a female Rodian who, much to his amusement, squealed with excitement when she realized who she was talking to. He had to work to calm her down and even then he had to send a calming nudge through the force, but he managed to get put through to the company's distribution and shipping department and talk to a manager. They didn't need anything moved right that moment, but they swapped information anyways, said their goodbyes and then Ezra moved on to the next company on the list.

He did this several times over the course of the next hour while compiling a list of who needed what moved and how much they would to pay.

Eventually Sabine came up to tell him she was making a quick trip into town to grab a fuel line and would be back in about two hours.

It was just after she left that the long-distance communication array lit up and Ezra did his best to hurry the call he was on without seeming too rude. As soon as he hung up, he eagerly brought up the transmission. Due to the vast distance between him and the mystery signal, speaking face to face with whatever it was would be impossible. Instead, a string of numbers and letters were slowly appearing at a rate of one character per minute. The wait was agonizing, and the result was perplexing. It was a series of letter and number sequences that he couldn't make sense of, followed by a prompt to enter a number between one and 10. Not knowing what else to do, he picked number one and waited for a reply. 15 minutes later he began receiving again. It was another letter and number sequence, but just one line of it this time. There were no further transmissions, no matter how long he waited, so he returned to his task of looking for a job. There were only a couple left to go through and he was done within the hour. He still hadn't received anything more from the signal and there wasn't much to do until Sabine was back.

He elected to head down to the Nightbrother and see what was going on. Sure enough, there was a small puddle of fuel right below the engines. A maintenance ladder hung down from the engines underneath the right wing where Sabine had gone up to try and figure out the problem.

He went inside the ship and pulled up the last diagnostic report on the nearest data screen. The scans indicated it was just a minor fix. Well, that issue anyways. Half of the ship was lit up red. Once Sabine returned with the fuel line it should only be another half hour of work to make the Nightbrother flyable again. How long it had been leaking and how much fuel they'd lost, he had no idea.

Considering Sabine wasn't supposed to be back for a while yet and he had time to burn, he grabbed a screwdriver from the tool box and then went up to the cockpit. As long as she wasn't here and couldn't complain, he was going to move her seat back to its' proper place.

o~0~O~0~o

Just as Kyler feared, most of her contacts on planet weren't responding to her calls, which meant they were either dead or forced into hiding. Those that did answer her calls were a little too friendly, which, on Tatooine, meant they wanted something. More than likely they wanted her head on a stick.

She needed to get off planet fast. Staying here would only mean certain death. The local towns were too small to hide in and the open desert was too dangerous for a single person brave alone. Plus, given enough space and time away from here and she could figure out once and for all who was dead, who was alive, and who wanted to kill her. Only then could she begin to fight back and rebuild.

There were a few different smugglers she worked with on a regular basis. She never thought she'd be calling them to smuggle herself off world, but such was the way of things right now. She gave a call to a man who called himself Tucker, but because of the listening devices on board his ship, she knew his real name to be Dan.

To her immense relief, Dan answered and agreed to get her off Tatooine. He sent here some coordinates and promised to be there the next day.

o~0~O~0~o

While Sabine was out buying a new fuel line, her comm started ringing. When she answered it, the smiling face of Ryder Azadi appeared and the two had a brief, but pleasant conversation. The governor had pulled some strings and managed to get a reservation at Jacob's Café, a rather prestigious restaurant only Lothal's elite tended to dine at and was wondering if she and Ezra would like to join them at his expense.

So, after getting back to the tower, finishing the repairs on the Nightbrother and discussing the opportunities on Ezra's list, the two of them got changed into their best. In other words, Ezra ironed his orange shirt and Sabine touched up any scratches on her armour.

They were almost turned away at the door by a hostess with a thick, core world accent, but were saved by the manager who had recognized the orange shirt and the colourful Mandalorian armour in his peripheral vison as he passed by. The hostess had scowled in distaste, but nonetheless let a nearby waiter escort them to their table.

A large white, water feature dominated the main lobby contrasting the deep grey floors and the burnt amber walls. A large window with a view of Lothal's waterfront framed the large crystal chandelier that hung from the tall, dark ceiling. Soft, calming music drifted in the background behind the idle chatter of the patrons, while the many different platers of colourful and delicious food provided a pleasant sensation for the nose.

Ezra and Sabine turned many heads as they passed through the room to a table near the window, and not just because their attire clashed with the tuxedos and opulent dresses of the other diners. Everyone, except the hostess at the front, knew who they were.

"Haha! There you two are." Ryder greeted and stood up as they approached, "It's great to see you two again."

"Good to see you as well," Ezra said as he shook Ryder's hand.

Sabine smiled as she shook Ryder's hand as well, "Yes, it's been too long."

They all took their seats and thanked the waiter as he passed them all some menus, let them know what the soup of the day was and poured them some water. Then he left to let them decide on their meal.

"I see fame has allowed you two certain benefits us normal rift raft don't receive," Ryder joked from behind his menu as he gestured from his own grey tuxedo to their rather colourful clothing and armour.

"Yeah well, being a Jedi can get you into some places others can't," Ezra said, "I've also never owned a tuxedo."

"And I'm not much of a dress type of girl," Sabine laughed, pointing to her armor for emphasis, "They made me leave my blasters at the door though."

"You don't need blasters to be deadly," Ezra pointed out.

"Neither do you, but they still let you keep your lightsaber."

"That's only because the hostess has no idea what it is. Besides, you got to keep yours as well," He said as he gestured to the cylinder on her belt.

"So, Jedi weapons are allowed, but Mandalorian blasters are too much. This is discrimination!" Sabine said with a smile on her face, clearly enjoying the squabble.

Ezra shook his head with mirth.

Ryder watched the little exchange with a knowing smile, "So," he said as he put down his menu, having decided what he was going to eat, "You two are flying around together hauling cargo across the galaxy now. Following in the footsteps of the great Hera Syndulla. Does that mean you two are together now?"

Ezra nearly spit out a sip of his water, but managed to keep his dignity. Sabine turned bright red, "What? No! We uhhh… yeah," She sputtered in embarrassment, "Not yet," She whispered so quietly only she heard.

"Were uh, just friends. You know, crew mates, just trying to make a living together," Ezra said when he finally managed to swallow his drink.

"Friends, right…" Ryder grinned, "I seem to remember Hera and Kanan were 'just friends' too. They flew around together, lived together, fought together, had a kid together…"

"No, no, no, no. Nothing like that is going on," Ezra said, his voice going up an octave, "No kids happening anytime soon."

"Maybe not right away," Ryder conceded, "but someday."

"So, how are things on Lothal?" Sabine said, a bit more forceful than necessary, "Anything new and exciting happening in your office?"

Ryder laughed, but allowed the change of topic. He'd teased them enough, "Nothing too interesting unless your involved in the fishing industry. There's a bloke from Kamino who came into town a few months ago and decided he wanted to bring some of the local wildlife with him so he could sport fish in a year or two. It's a large aggressive sort that breeds quickly, so now we need to divert some funds to try and get rid of it."

"How tough of a job is that going to be?" Sabine asked.

"Not as hard as you would think it'd be actually. The guy only brought two fish, so chances are they wont actually breed. As soon as we get one of them the sea will be safe again, but we're preparing for the worst just in case," he answered, "There is a 200-credit bounty if you want to try your luck and go fishing."

Ezra and Sabine both laughed, and polity turned him down.

Ryder smiled, "I figured as much. Other than that, things have been peaceful, the economy has been good, and the citizens are happy," Ryder said as he leaned his head back into his arms, "It's enough to keep a governor like me satisfied. What about you two? How have your travels been?"

Ezra and Sabine filled him in on what they had been up to for the past few weeks, from the escape from Krownest until they had arrived on Lothal, during which time they'd had enough time to order and begin eating their food.

"Sounds like quite the trip," Ryder commented when they had finished their tale, "How long do you plan on staying on Lothal for?"

Sabine and Ezra shared a glance, "Maybe a day or two," Sabine answered, "Depends on how long it takes us to decided on a job and get loaded."

Ryder nodded, "Well I suppose it had to happen eventually. Not enough excitement hanging around here to keep a pair of war heroes like you around."

Ezra smiled, "It's always nice to come home and slow down every once and a while, but your right. It gets boring eventually."

"Boring can be good though," Sabine said, "There's nothing wrong with it."

"Any idea where you'll go after this?"

Ezra thought for a moment, "There were a few different offers. The most outrageous one was Simon's Magic Shop. He wanted me to become his mascot. But we think we've narrowed it down to three different options. Delilah's Hair Salon has some product they want delivered to a buyer on Raxus, Nehmiah's Rock and Gravel wants some bricks taken to Corsin, and remember that crawler that we used to contact the Alliance before we liberated Lothal? A guy named Jesse owns the farm it's sitting on now and is selling any parts he can salvage. He heard we were looking for work and wants us to send the generator to a company on Malastare. We just need to figure out which job to take."

"How did he find out?"

"He works for Ohed's Manufacturing when he's not out farming and happened to overhear our conversation.

"I see," Ryder said and leaned back in thought. He wanted to give the two young adults some advice if he could, "What are the advantages and disadvantages of each?"

"Going to Malastare makes us the most credits, but it's also the longest route," Sabine said, "The Raxus Job pays the least, but it's a quick trip and we'd have more luck finding a job there after were done than the other two. Corsin is kind of the happy middle."

"And how do you plan on deciding?"

"Chance cube?" Ezra smirked.

Ryder laughed, "Why don't you consult the force?"

"I uh, never thought about it."

Ryder laughed, "Kid, there's no doubt in my mind that a someone like you will end up where he needs to be no matter what happens. From what I've gathered the force has a strange way of working around Jedi, but, it may go a little easier on you if you just go where you need to be, rather than have the force force you to go."

Ezra laughed a little on the inside, one because Ryder had just called him a kid, and two, because of the little reminder of the old lesson to always trust the force. He steadied his breathing and closed his eyes. He reached out to the idea of each of the different planets to feel the way the force reacted to them, "Malastare. We should go to Malastare."

Inwardly, Sabibne groaned, when the force was involved, things were never easy.


	14. Chapter 14

**(A/N) As much as I've enjoyed writing the last few quiet and cute chapters, I've been looking forward to this one for a while. Have fun.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**HistoryObsessedsiFiNerd16: Thanks. I enjoyed writing it.**

**Spectre6: lol**

**Guest 1: I'll try and make it worthwhile :D**

**pnew106s No, I'm not planning on killing one of them. When I wrote this I wanted to write something a little more lighthearted than my other Story, Disturbed Reflections, which can get quite dark at times.**

**Guest 2: LOL! Yeah, I had a lot of fun writing that little interaction. **

**Chapter 14**

Ezra and Sabine's third morning on Lothal began in much the same way as the previous two, wrapped up in each other.

Sabine woke up early only to find herself the little spoon. Ezra had an arm tucked under each of hers and was holding her back against his chest like a child would a teddy bear. His right forearm made a wonderful pillow for her head and one of his legs lay over top of hers, keeping her both comfortable and warm. His soft breathing in her ear threatened to lull her back to sleep.

As much as she just wanted to continue lying there, today was they day they got the Nightbrother loaded up again and left for Malastare.

She turned her head, so she could see him out of the corner of her eye, "Ezra," she called, but received no answer or any sign he had heard her. She shifted her body, so she could see him better and was about to call his name again but froze when a thought came to her. This was their last day on Lothal, which meant they'd both be going back to their separate rooms onboard the Nightbrother tonight. There wouldn't be another moment like this to enjoy. So instead, she gingerly reached her head up and placed a quick kiss on his cheek, then quickly turned away and snuggled back into Ezra's arms, her cheeks flushed red.

Secure in the knowledge he would never know, she set her internal alarm clock to wake her up in another 15 minutes. She would be skipping her morning workout again, but she couldn't bring herself to care that much.

o~0~O~0~o

Half an hour later, they both got up and began their day. While Sabine was in the shower Ezra went up to the comm station and discovered his mystery source had sent two more transmission during the night, one just after they went to sleep and another two hours ago. Both were number and letter sequences, just like the other. He tried to signal it again, but received no answer.

Shrugging to himself, he programmed the computer to send any future transmissions to the Nightbrother and then left to take his own shower when he heard Sabine get out.

After they were both cleaned and dressed, they locked up the tower and headed over to their ship. They climbed the ladder and made their way to the cockpit, Ezra let Sabine stroll in first. She entered and sat down in her seat, the co-pilot's chair. Ezra stood by the doorway trying to figure out why the co-pilot's chair was painted and not the pilot's seat like it was yesterday. He was certain he had switched them around. Sabine was grinning like a lothcat who had just pounced on a loth-squirrel.

"What the- When did? How'd you…"

Sabine laughed hard, "I saw the switched seats when I came in to double check the diagnostics, so I switched them back while I had you crawling around inside the wing."

Ezra shook his head in amusement, "Alright, you win. You can have the co-pilot's chair, but we captain the ship together," he said and held out his hand for a handshake. Sabine laughed and tried to grab it, but Ezra yanked it away at the last second, "As long as you paint my chair as well."

"I think we have ourselves a deal."

They fired up the Nightbrother's engines and took off towards the southern hemisphere. At the ship's top speed it would take them maybe a couple hours to reach the cliff that had once been the Lothal Resistance's base of operations. They weren't traveling at top speed though so they would arrive closer to noon.

Once they arrived, they had a brief, but pleasant conversation with the farmer, then got to work moving the generator into the Nightbrother's hold. Jesse had a few strong repulsor lifts and eight sons that helped them to get it onboard. When the job was done, they thanked them, said their goodbyes and took off.

It was while they were already in space and Ezra was fiddling with the navi-computer that he had his epiphany. The number sequences on the computer looked awfully similar to the numbers he had received from his mystery source. He pulled out Thrawn's code cylinder, plugged it into the communication array and pulled up the conversation that he'd been having.

He punched the number sequence he had received right after he had answered the prompt into the Navi-computer. Sure enough, he got a result. He watched in curiosity as the map zoomed out towards the Northern Edge of the galaxy and beyond into the Unknown Regions. He punched in the number that had been sent the previous night and once again, the Navi-computer showed a result. It registered a large jump to the south east. The last number that had been sent set up an unsettling pattern when it appeared in known space for the first time in quadrant V3, the far North East of the galaxy.

He had a bad feeling about this.

"Do you have the coordinates set yet?" Sabine asked.

"Hold on," Ezra replied as he had the computer project the signal's estimated flight path and the time of arrival, "Uhhh, Sabine… I may have done something bad."

Sabine looked at him questioningly, "What?"

A light on one of the consoles lit up in warning that a large object was about to exit hyperspace in front of them, then a ship appeared, blocking their path.

"That." Ezra sheepishly replied as they stared up the triangular bow of a heavily modified Arquitens-Class Command Cruiser. The communications array was larger than normal, all sorts of sensor equipment had been attached to it, a few solar panels had been fitted on the hull and in the place of the shuttle that normally accompanied the cruiser, a large, specially fitted fuel tank that stretched the entire length of the ship had been equipped.

Sabine yanked up on the steering column to avoid a collision. The ship responded by rotating the wings around the fuselage to make a sharp turn away from the imperial ship. "Where did that thing come from!" She shouted in surprise."

Ezra grimaced, "Fly now, questions later!" he pleaded as he noticed the cruiser turn to pursue. "How much do you want to bet this ship has been flagged by Imperials?"

The ship shuddered as a turbolaser blast bounced off their shields.

"Oh, they flagged us alright!" Sabine shouted.

Ezra went to the weapons console to see what he could do to fight back and started firing at the enemy ship with the rear canons, but the occasional hit he managed to land was nowhere near enough to get through the cruiser's shields. Sabine did her best to roll the Nightbrother around the incoming fire and get away, but with the lack of power due to the ship's damaged engines, it was a loosing battle.

"The Lothal Self Defence Force should be mobilizing right now!" Sabine yelled over the sound of another shot slamming against their shields, "It will take them a while to get here, but we should be able to hold together long enough as long as-"

They were both thrown forward in their seats as the ship came to a complete and sudden stop.

Sabine growled in frustration and hit the controls with her fists, "Karabast! Were caught in their tractor beam."

Neither Ezra or Sabine could do anything but watch helplessly as the Nightbrother was pulled by an invisible hand closer and closer to the cruiser's docking port.

"How are we going to get out of this one?" Sabine finally asked, realizing they were about to be pulled onto a ship that had a compliment of 750 crew members on board, "Were good, but the two of us against are not going to hold out against them for long in a straight up fire fight."

"I have an idea," Ezra said, "But you may not like it."

o~0~O~0~o

"You are so making this up to me later." Sabine growled as they stood by the airlock with her hands in binders. The connection between the two ships had just been established and they were just waiting for the Imperials to force their way in.

"And how would you like me to go about that?" Ezra asked with a smirk on his face as he quickly tucked the shirt of his Imperial officer's uniform into his pants and pulled his cap on low over his face.

"I'm sure I'll think of something."

Their banter was cut short as the airlock doors slid open and a seven-foot-tall black droid with white eyes and Imperial markings burst in. It was a KX Series Security droid, which had both Sabine and Ezra cursing their luck. The KX series droids were very hard to fool and unlike Stormtroopers, couldn't be mind tricked.

It stopped when it saw the pair and gave them a confused look. The droid's eyes flicked from Ezra, to Sabine, back to Ezra, then to Sabine once again, glanced down to her feet, back to her face, repeated its' appraisal of the 'captive', and then turned to Ezra once again.

Sabine got ready to throw off the unlocked binders and grab her guns as Ezra raised his hand and gave the droid a friendly wave, "Hey, thanks for the distraction. It gave me a chance to escape and get the drop on this rebel scum," he said as he grabbed Sabine's arm. Sabine let out a huff of annoyance and roller her eyes in response.

The droid let its' eyes flick between the two again and then eased itself into a more relaxed stance, "Ah yes, good to see you alive and well Commander Bridger," it said in a slightly robotic voice that sounded deceivingly friendly. Ezra and Sabine shared a confused look at each other as the droid turned its' attention down the hall and waved off several more KX droids that were waiting as backup, "Situation secure, return to your posts," it said before turning it's attention back to the pair of organics, "I am K-4R1," It said, "Welcome aboard the Calumnitus. Will we be escorting your prisoner to the detention center or the bridge?"

"Uhhh… the bridge." Ezra replied.

"As you wish. Lead the way."

Ezra guided Sabine out of the Nightbrother and into the halls of the Calumnitus, carful to keep an eye on the droid behind him. He wasn't exactly sure how to get to cruiser's bridge, but he figured it would be somewhere towards the back of the ship and up some stairs.

"Commander Bridger." K-4 called.

"Yes?" Ezra asked as he turned back.

"The bridge is this way," the droid said and pointed down a side hall.

"Ah yes. Uh, why don't you lead the way?"

"Alright."

The three strode down the bleak grey hallways with purpose. They passed several other droids along the way, mostly of the cleaning or maintenance droids, but the halls were oddly devoid of any stormtroopers.

After a few minutes of walking and short elevator ride, they arrived at the bridge. There was nothing real special about it, except for the lack of humanity. Instead of the normal compliment of Imperial officers seated at the terminals, a few dozen droids manned the controls. The Nightbrother could be seen out the front window docked on the ship's starboard side.

"What in the name of the Emperor's flaccid face is going on here?" A gruff voice yelled.

Ezra and Sabine focused their attention on what could very well be the only living being on the ship other than themselves. He short middle-aged man with grey-black hair and a goatee who viewed them both with suspicion.

"I think there's been a misunderstanding," Ezra said, "I'm supposed to be escorting my prisoner here to the planet's surface and impound her ship. So, if you'll just let us go we'll be out of your ha-"

"Oh no," The man replied, "I didn't spend six years in the unknown regions only to be called back to Lothal of all places, and have some snivellin, gutless officer not worth a single one of the hairs up Tarkin's nose tell me there was a misunderstanding. Your telling me what's going on or I'll have that security droid mop the floor with your undergarments and lock you both in the brig."

"Uh… nobody wanted to come with you, did they?" Ezra quipped.

"Shut up, it was mutual you insolent little welp!" The captain growled, "I ought to have you thrown under Vader's metal bootstrap."

"No they did not," K-4 groaned.

Sabine shook her head in annoyance. This was going nowhere fast and so she shook her bindings loose and hurled them across the room where they made a satisfying thud off the man's forehead, knocking him out.

"Hurrah!" A voice behind them yelled and Sabine and Ezra turned to see K-4 turn and rip the head off a nearby tactical droid and throw it through another. He then grabbed the droid's sparking body and threw it across the room where it collided with a third. The rest of the droids quickly left the room to preserve themselves.

"What are you doing?" Sabine asked, an exasperated look on her face.

"Yeah, why are you not, you know, securitying." Ezra asked.

"What does it look like? I'm rebelling. It's fun. The Empire is boring," K-4 said, "You are part of the rebellion are you not?"

"Uhhhh, sure…"

"That is not very convincing."

Sabine shook her head in disbelief, "You know what, we can talk about this later. Right now, lets just get off the ship. Can you disable the tractor beam?"

"I can do better than that." K-4 said as his right hand rolled back and a computer interface arm took its' place. The droid turned and plugged himself into the nearest terminal, "I can overload the reactor and blow this whole ship up."

"What!"

"Self destruction sequence initiated. We have five minutes to escape."

"Woah, woah, wait, there may be some valuable information in the computers here," Ezra said, "can you maybe just cut the power or something?"

"I downloaded everything, and we are running out of time." K-4 replied as he unplugged himself.

"Fine, grab him," Sabine said as she pointed to the comatose captain.

"Why?"

"Because we are not leaving him here to die."

"But I don't like him. He can stay," K-4 said.

"Just grab him!" Ezra ordered, knowing that an argument would only mean the death of all of them, "He'll go to prison later."

K-4R1 sighed, but complied and threw the captain over his shoulder, bloody nose and all, "Can we go now?"

"Yes."

Ezra and Sabine ran as fast as they could back to the Nightbrother. K-4 kept up at a just slight jog do to his longer legs. They disconnected from the Calumnitus as soon as they were on board their ship and sped away from the doomed Imperial vessel as fast as they could. Moments after they cleared the blast radius the countdown reached zero and the ship began blowing itself apart.

The captain chose that moment to wake up, "Yularen's magnificent mustache! What's happening to my ship?"

K-4R1 whacked him on the head with his fist, knocking him out again, "Be quiet, or I'll be the one throwing you under Vader's metal boot strap."

o~0~O~0~o

The aftermath of the Calumnitus incident had forced the crew of the Nightbrother to return to Lothal so they could make their statements with the proper authorities. Thankfully, because this had transpired in Lothalian space, rather than one of the systems of the New Republic, they didn't have to stay long. Captain Malifix Zorenguard of the Imperial Navy had been incarcerated and was awaiting transfer to a more secure facility, and the data K-4R1 had downloaded had been extracted. The Calumnitus had spent the previous six years surveying the unknown regions at the request of Emperor Palpatine himself. The discovery of the secret expedition had uncovered similar signal sources in other areas of the unknown regions and the New Republic would now be recalling the other vessels one at a time. The information gathered would be compiled and eventually make its' way to Thrawn to aid him and the New Republic forces in the fight against the Grysk.

All in all, it was a very satisfying day's work from Ezra's perspective. Not so much from Sabine's, "I told you to get rid of the uniform, you didn't and look where it got us," She said as they made their way back into the Nightbrother.

"What, there had to be a reason Thrawn left me that code cylinder and that signal source was the only one I could come up with," Ezra said.

"Yeah, but we could have been killed and there are people to handle that sort of thing now."

"We could have been killed pretty much every day we were fighting with the rebellion."

"Yeah, but that was different."

"How?"

"We're not fighting with the Rebellion anymore. Those days are behind us."

Ezra gave her a funny look, "Since when are you against going into combat? You used to love fighting and blowing stuff up. Especially when it dealt a blow to the Empire."

"I like sticking it to the Empire as much as the next person, but I've had enough of sticking my neck out for one lifetime," Sabine replied and then hit the control to lower the Nightbrother's ramp.

"I was wondering when you would show up," a familiar robotic voice called from inside, "I was getting impatient. I almost left without you."

Ezra and Sabine stared at the droid in shock, their argument forgotten.

"What are you doing here?" Sabine asked.

"People stopped paying attention to me and I got bored, so I left," a few seconds of silence stretched between them. K'4's head popped up and his voice took on an accusatory tone, "Wait a minute, you were going to leave me here."

"We actually had no idea what was going on with you," Ezra said.

The droid was silent for a few moments, "Take me with you," he finally said, "I don't want to go back to the Empire."

Ezra and Sabine shared a look, "Well, he could be useful," Ezra pointed out.

"Alright, fine," Sabine said, you can come with us.

The droid perked up and despite the vaguely skull like and immobile face, managed to exude an air of happiness, "Thank you!" He said, "Oh, by the way. While I was waiting I did a scan of your ship and found a total of three tracking devices and 43 listening devices originating from two different sources, locations and persons unknown. I have removed all of them," K-4 said as he grabbed a bucket full of small electronic devises, "They all self-terminated when discovered."

Ezra and Sabine stared at the small pile in shock.

"What?" K-4 asked, "I'm a security droid."

o~0~O~0~o

After the initial shock that someone had been listening to them had worn off, they made their way back to the cockpit to take off again. K-4 led the way, eager to get going. He was forced to duck underneath every bulk head in the ship, but that didn't seem to faze him. He just made the mistake of sitting in the co-pilot's seat when he finally got there.

Sabine gave him a dirty look, "Get out of my chair."

K-4R1 looked down to the seat, "Oh, is this your chair. I didn't see a name on it and I liked it. It's colourful. So much better than Imperial grey or black."

This made both Sabine and Ezra chuckle.

"As if one colour loving person in my life wasn't enough," Ezra joked.

Sabine smirked, "Well, if your going to be part of our crew, I'm sure I can work something out for you, but for now, you better move."

o~0~O~0~o

Kyler watched in dismay as the Corellian YT Transport ship Dan flew burst into flames moments after entering Tatooine's atmosphere. Someone somewhere knew Dan was coming and had shot him out of the sky. Still, she should be thankful for Dan's sacrifice. Whoever had blown the ship up had failed to realize they could kill her when she tried to board the ship and at the same time tipped her off that they had access to her surveillance network.

She couldn't contact anybody she had used before to get her off planet, and a mercenary was just as likely to collect the bounty off on her head as get her off planet, so she was effectively trapped here. Unless… The Nightbrother had listening devices and a tracker on it, but it had never been officially patched into her network because they were on a trail basis. All of the relays should have been destroyed when her tent blew up. And if push came to shove, the Mandalorian and the Jedi combo could make a good protection detail.

She grabbed her radio and imputed their frequency.

**(A/N) So there's two things I want to say. If you have no clue what a KX series droid is, think K-2S0 from Rogue One. I loved K2 and couldn't resist putting one of his brethren in this story. That being said, K-4R1 is supposed to be his own character, not a carbon copy of K-2S0. **


	15. Chapter 15

**(A/N) Here's another chapter for you guys. I hope you all enjoy it.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**Guest 1: Thrawn knew there was something Imperial in the unknown regions, but didn't know what. He tried to lure it to them so they could use its' navigational data to plot a course back to known space, but it never worked out for them. When he went back to the Chiss Ascendancy he figured he had no use for it, but Ezra might so he slipped it to him. **

**I also figure most of the droids were destroyed, and any that did manage to escape were picked up by the Lothal Self Defence Force and either reprogramed or scrapped.**

**pnew106s: That would be funny, but not really the character that I have in mind for K-4R1.**

**Mogor: I typically update every second Saturday.**

**sabinewren20.22: Thank you.**

**Guest 2: See, I had the name 'Karl' in my head, but now I don't know if I like Kari or Karl more. I'll have to thank on that for a bit.**

**Guest 3: I'm not planning on killing anyone unless either Ezra and Sabine gets old enough to die of old age, and I don't plan on writing this story for that long.**

**Achillies453: Yeah, I wrote that 'Emperors' flaccid face' line and laughed so hard at it I just had to continue wit it.**

**Chapter 15**

"You have quite the obstinate piece of hardware Commander Bridger," K-4 said as he unplugged himself from the Nightbrother's access port. It had taken the droid just twelve seconds to chart the jump, much, much faster than Ezra had ever been able to and the Ezra made a mental note to let K-4 be the one to fight with the computer from now on, "Your ship fought like an angry Tooka to stop at the Makem Te Refueling Station, and I get the feeling it does not really like Jedi or Imperials interacting with its systems."

"What about me?" Sabine asked as she engaged the hyperdrive and the ship jumped to lightspeed, "I'm a Mandalorian, not a Jedi or an Imperial and it still fights me."

"It likes you more," K-4 revealed, "but knows you work with the Jedi. You may consider wiping the ship's memory banks and resetting it to factory settings."

"We'll add it to the to-do list," Ezra said.

Sabine, seeing the coordinates had been entered in,

"And K-4, you can drop the Commander Bridger title. It's just Ezra," Ezra said as he unbuckled himself from his seat and stretched.

K-4R1 looked at him like he had two heads, "I am K-4R1, not K-4, and are you not Commander Bridger of the Rebel Alliance? Is military discipline in the rebellion really that relaxed?"

Ezra laughed, "There's no need for a rebellion anymore. We won."

"What do you mean 'we won'?"

"He means, Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine were both killed at the battle of Endor and the Empire fell. The galaxy is now run by the New Republic," Sabine said.

"So, there is no more war?"

Sabine smiled, "There is no more war. The Galaxy is finally at peace."

K-4 was silent for a few moments as his computers attempted to process this new information, "That is disappointing," He finally said. He then turned and plugged himself back into the ship's computer.

"What are you doing?" Ezra asked.

"I am using your ship's connection to the holonet to download new software. If the Empire is no longer functioning, then the Imperial Datanet is no longer being updated which explains my inability to access basic information," he said without looking up.

"Alright, have fun then I guess," Ezra said. Both he and Sabine then got up and left the cockpit. It was getting late and they were getting hungry. They had just made it to the ship's ladder when the comm unit in the cockpit started going off. They sighed in unison and returned to the cockpit to see who was calling them. K-4 didn't look up as they entered and sat back down in their seats. Ezra reached forward and answered the call. The image of a blond woman materialized in front of them. Ezra opened his mouth to great her but was silenced when Kyler Moive placed a finger to her lips in a hush motion.

"I need you to do something for me," Kyler whispered, "There may be a tracker and a few bugs on you ship. I need you to remove them."

"You mean the 43 listening devices and the three trackers we found on the Nightbrother today?" Ezra asked.

"You mean the 43 listening Devices and three trackers that I found," K-4 interrupted.

"Who was that?" Kyler asked with suspicion.

"We picked up a droid on Lothal," Sabine said, "Ignore him."

K-4 leaned forward as much as he could while still being connected to the ship's computers. His head was just barely visible in the hologram looming over the heads of Sabine and Ezra, "Hi. I am K-4R1."

"Uh, hi," Kyler replied, "I guess."

"Anyways, you were saying…" Sabine said in an attempt to steer them back to whatever it was Kyler wanted to talk to them about.

"Oh yes, the trackers, you found them all right?"

"Yes I did," K-4 replied, "Your devices were well hidden, but not well enough."

"Good."

"Why? What's going on?" Ezra asked.

"First, I need to ask you something. I heard you mention Maul. I know he once ruled Mandalor," She said, looking pointedly at Sabine, "And he knows the force," She turned her gaze to Ezra, "Who is he to you?"

Ezra and Sabine shared a look. K-4 listened intently.

"An old wound," Ezra answered cryptically, remembering the words of Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, "Or more like a scar now."

"That man was a demon." Sabine said.

"Demon works too," Ezra agreed, "He;s part of a past neither of us really like to relive."

"I need to know," Kyler said.

Ezra sighed, "I met him when I was still a young padawan. He thought I would make a good Sith apprentice, blinded my master, tried to kill my family on multiple occasions and force me to his side. He failed, but he followed us around for a few years and made our lives difficult."

"And your ship…" Kyler asked suspiciously, "The Nightbrother. A reference to his homeworld?"

"The Nightbrother was Maul's ship," Ezra supplied, "He died on Tatooine several years ago and I needed a ride off world. It's been in my possession ever ever since. I just haven't been able to change its' name yet."

"Wait, Maul's dead?" Kyler asked.

"Yep."

"Good riddance too," Sabine added.

Kyler nodded, satisfied with their answer for now and lost in thought. It took her a moment to remember why she had called in the first place, "I need transportation off Tatooine."

"What does that have to do with Maul?" Sabine asked.

"Nothing. I just need to know your not working with him," Kyler said.

"Trust me, we're not."

"It would seem I have no choice," Kyler said, "I'll pay you 3000 credits to get me off this planet."

"That is a fair price," K-4 said.

Sabine silenced him with a look.

Ezra glanced over at the navi-computer. Tatooine was many parsecs out of their way and would likely add a day to their travel time, but he would be lying if he said they couldn't use the extra credits, but something still bothered him. There was a nagging feeling in the force. Kyler wasn't telling them the whole truth. One look from Sabine and he knew she was suspicious of Kyler as well. "What are you not telling us?" Ezra asked.

"Nothing," Kyler said, "I told you everything."

"That's bantha crap and you know it," Sabine said with a pointed glare.

Kyler raised her arms in a calming gesture, "Fine. It's not safe for me here anymore. My entire operation has been compromised. I need to get away from Tatooine so I can figure out how to fix this safely."

"And…" Ezra pressed.

"And someone may have already died trying to get me off planet," Kyler growled, "There no hiding anything from Jedi is there?"

Ezra smirked, "Nope."

"Ezra, can I talk to you for a second?" Sabine asked, "Alone?"

"Yeah, sure," he said.

"Does that mean me too?" K-4 asked.

"Keep downloading whatever it is your downloading," Ezra said, "Who knows when it will come in handy."

Ezra and Sabine excused themselves and disappeared into the hallway. They made sure to close the cockpit door behind them.

"What do you think?" Sabine asked.

"Well, I still doubt she's telling us the full truth, but I think we can handle any problems that may come up and still get to Malastare on time."

"I don't like this," Sabine said, "Who knows what we'll be actually getting ourselves into and we don't have any backup."

"We rarely did when we were in the rebellion, and there's no one I would rather trust in a fight than you."

Sabine smiled at the compliment.

"Besides, now that we know its going to be dangerous, we can charge more, and you know we could use the extra credits."

Sabine thought hard about it, but finally she nodded her head in agreement, "I want at least 7000 then if we're going to do this."

Ezra grinned, "We could almost buy a new engine with that amount of money."

"Exactly," Sabine smirked, "But I want us to be careful. I don't want to have to fight off an entire crime syndicate as soon as we step foot on the planet."

"We can handle it."

Sabine shook her head in amusement.

They returned to the cockpit to find Kyler pestering K-4 for information, "-give me something."

"Ms. Moive, I would be betraying my coding to divulge information of that nature. As a Security Droid I will do everything in my power to protect the private information of my owners and those entrusted to my care."

"What's the matter, don't trust us?" Sabine asked as she and Ezra re-appeared in the hologram.

Kyler jumped, making K-4 laugh, "I also don't have to alert you when they return.

Kyler shook her head in annoyance, "My trust was recently betrayed. I won't apologise for being cautious."

Ezra chose to ignore the comment, "Well, this job is a lot more dangerous than you first made it out to be, which means it will be more expensive. We want 10,000 credits if we're going to do this," Ezra said. He was starting a little high so they would have some bargaining room, "We have no idea what sort of danger were going to be in and we need to make sure we can cover any damages to our ship."

Kyler bit her lip nervously, "I don't have anywhere near 10,000 credits on me."

"How much do you have?" Sabine asked.

Kyler hesitated, "I can give you 3000 when you get here, and 8000 once I get to one of my safehouses."

Ezra and Sabine shared a look. 11,000 credits was a lot of money, "Deal!" they both said in unison, "It will take us about a week to get there though," Ezra said.

"I guess I'll have to wait then," Kyler sighed, "Send me a message on this frequency when your near the area and I'll give you my coordinates," Kyler said, then hung up without saying goodbye or waiting for a reply.

o~0~O~0~o

After the long day they'd had, Ezra and Sabine retired early to their own rooms while K-4R1 found a charging port in the common room.

Sabine extracted herself from her armour and hung it up on the armour stand, then stripped out of her body suit and changed into a tank top and shorts for bed.

It was quiet, save for the hum of the ship's engines. Too quiet. Kriff. They had only spent three nights together in the tower and she was already too used to Ezra's presence. She missed the steady rhythm of his breath in her ear, the warmth of his body heat, and the feeling of his arms wrapped around her. She tossed and turned for an hour before she finally gave up on sleeping and went down stairs to watch the holonet.

K-4 was hunched over in a corner, his normally glowing white eyes were dim indicating he had powered down. She pulled out a blanket, pulled it over top of her and turned the TV on with the Volume on low. A sitcom about a Jedi and a Sith who were forced to work together and constantly threatening to kill each other came on. It was utterly ridiculous and pointless. The writers lack of knowledge about either faction or the force itself was obvious, but it was a welcome distraction from her thoughts.

"Sabine?" A voice asked from the doorway.

Sabine startled, "Sorry Ezra, didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't," Ezra said as he walked over, "Couldn't sleep and I felt you walk by my door."

Sabine opened the blanket and invited him to snuggle up next to her, which he graciously accepted. Neither said a word after that. It was warm under the blanket, and despite the old couch, they were both comfortable. The TV was soon forgotten and they both felt their eyelids drooping. When they were fast asleep, K-4 powered himself up, watched them curiously for a few moments. The blanket covering the two had slipped down around their waists so he pulled it back up around their shoulders. He then turned the TV off, went back to his charging station and powered himself down for the night.


	16. Chapter 16

**(A/N) I'm not sure I'll have time to post this tomorrow morning so I'm going to post it now. I'm also not sure if I'll be able to post the next chapter on time as I will be heading to a wedding next week during the period of time when I would usually be writing. I'll try my best though.  
**

**As far as this chapter goes, there are a few things that I want to say about it, but I'm going to choose to wait until after you've read it so I don't spoil anything. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget to follow, favourite and review. Your support means everything.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**pnew106s: Please see the authors note at the end of this chapter.**

**Guest 1: I'm glad you like K-4R1. I wouldn't say he was confused though, just studying the pair for a second.**

**Guest 2: Glad you liked it.**

**Achollies453: I was wondering if anyone was going to get that reference. So far, you're the only one who has brought up so far.**

**Branan Palmer: Thank you very much.**

**Chapter 16**

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The lightsabers bounced off one another harmlessly as Ezra and Sabine parried each other's attacks. Ezra's blade swung through the air in a downwards arc and crashed against Sabine's perfectly angled block. The blades locked together, crackling and hissing with flashes of light in a contest of strength and skill. Neither was willing to back down despite the heavy breathing and sweat beading on their foreheads.

Ezra had the better angle between the two of them, so Sabine twisted her blade to try and throw him off balance and take away his advantage. It worked, but only for a second. Still, a second was an eternity in a fast-paced duel such as this and it allowed her enough time to get around her opponent and press an attack. Ezra was a skilled opponent and despite the momentary setback, recovered quickly and deflected the blow. Just like that, they were swinging away at each other again, blue blade striking green and green blade striking at blue in a beautiful and deadly dance that showed no signs of slowing down.

They both took a step back to give themselves some breathing room and circled each other while size each the up. Ezra held his blade straight up and down in a frim grip, ready to strike out should an opening present itself, or swipe aside an incoming attack. Sabine held her blade down low and slightly out, both hands on her lightsaber's hilt and ready to react at a moment's notice. Ezra gingerly reached the tip of his lightsaber out to prod Sabine's defences with a few quick little jabs. The lightsabers snapped at the contact and Sabine easily knocked them out of the way. When she saw her chance, she jumped forward in a quick burst of speed, her lightsaber angled straight across Ezra's chest to try and overpower his defences. Should Ezra have blocked, her momentum would have driven both blades straight into his chest. Instead, his lightsaber snapped off with a hiss and he ducked under the blue blade of light. Sabine shot forward through the space Ezra had previously occupied but recovered quickly with a combat role and twisted around to meet the green ray of light that had reappeared and taken a swipe at her back.

Again, their blades locked together, but this time Ezra was able to lean his full weight down onto Sabine's crouched form and knock her blade to the side. He didn't give her a chance to bring her blade around again and brought the tip of his lightsaber to her neck. Sabine acknowledger her defeat with a laugh and Ezra helped her back to her feet, grinning from ear to ear. There was no question Sabine was the better marksman and she still held a small edge in hand to hand combat when the sparred, but Ezra was undoubtedly the better swordsman, neither was jealous of the other. Such was the way of things. They both had fun encouraging, teaching and improving one another. When they trained together, they learned what skills the needed to sharpen, gave each other pointers and learned how their partner operated. It was what made them so proficient in battle. Together, they were stronger, more than the sum of their parts.

K-4R1 began clapping from where he was standing on the sidelines, "Bravo Miss Wren and Ezra. A good fight I might say."

Sabine shook her head, "Miss Wren sounds out of place if you're going to call him Ezra all the time. Please call me Sabine."

"As you wish," K-4 replied, "Would there happen to be a chance that I could try wielding a lightsaber?"

Sabine shrugged and handed over her blade, "Be careful with it," She said.

"Sabine, I am proficient in many different types of combat including combat with a blade," K-4 said as he walked out into the center of the 'sparring arena' as Sabine and Ezra had begun calling the ramp.

"Whatever you say," She smiled as she walked over to the sidelines and grabbed a towel to dry off.

Ezra chuckled and readied himself for the coming fight, "Lets see what you got," his blade leaping out from his lightsaber's hilt with a hiss. K-4 mimicked his movements, though his larger than normal hands made gripping the weapon a bit awkward.

Ezra was the first to attack, lashing out with a heavy two-handed blow that K-4 was able to intercept and block. There was almost no give in K-4's grip and the impact of the two blades colliding was jarring. In the next second, K-4 was swinging the blade around fast at his midsection. Ezra found himself actually having to call upon the force to match the machine's strength and speed, and even then he was thrown backwards by the blow. He leapt back a few feet in order to give himself some space to think. There was no way he'd be able to out muscle K-4, but while the droid's strikes were fast and powerful, his movements were inefficient and awkward. If he couldn't match K-4 blow for blow, maybe he could out maneuver him.

Ezra removed his left hand from his lightsaber and held his blade in front of him in a ready position. Form II was a lightsaber form that relied heavily on the user's footwork to out maneuver the opponent. Ezra didn't really have much experience with Form II, instead preferring to utilize the more acrobatic Form IV as well as aspects of Form III and V, but he'd been teaching himself a few of the basics ever since he returned from the Unknown Regions.

K-4 raised his blade and came at him fast. Instead of rising to meet the challenge like K-4 expected him to, Ezra neatly sidestepped him while bringing his blade around to deflect the blow's momentum down and away from his body. Before K-4 could react, Ezra utilized the form's speed to whip the blade around and strike the droid on the top of his arm. If this had been a real battle, K-4 would have lost the arm, but as it was, the lightsabers were only set to their training mode and at worst, K-4's already black paint was slightly singed.

If his face could move, K-4R1 would have been frowning at his arm for being defeated so easily, but nevertheless congratulated Ezra on his victory and reset back to his side of the ramp, ready to go again.

"Would you like some pointers?" Ezra asked.

"There is no need," K-4 said, "You just got lucky."

Ezra smiled. Apparently some of the Imperial arrogance had worn off on K-4.

Ezra let K-4 attack first and then the fight was on. Human skill verses computer programing. The result was much the same as before. On the third try, K-4 tried to mimic Form II, and though his long arms should have given him an advantage, K-4 proved to be much better suited to holding a blaster than a lightsaber. After his third defeat, K-4 became frustrated and gave up, "Thank you for the demonstration and the chance to try my skills with a lightsaber," he said.

"You're welcome," Ezra replied. He then flopped down onto the floor to catch his breath.

K-4 turned and tossed Sabine's blade unceremoniously back to her, "Thank you Sabine for letting me borrow your weapon for the duel."

"Done already?" She smirked.

"My curiosity has been sated for now."

Sabine shrugged and then tossed a clean towel over to Ezra. He caught it without even looking up from where he was laying and thanked her. Sabine decided to join him on the floor, happy to rest for a moment. They could get up and continue sparing or get cleaned up later.

K-4 started to head to the ladder, most likely to go to the cockpit where he seemed to spend most of his time if his services weren't required or nothing interesting was going on, but he turned back at the last second. He observed the two organics for a short while and noted their closed eyes and happy smiles. He took the opportunity to bring up their files from both the Imperial Data Net and the New Republic Holonet again. Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren. Neither had had a happy childhood. Ezra had lost his parents young while Sabine had been banished from her home after leaving the Imperial Academy. Somehow, both lost souls had found themselves on board the Ghost in the time when the rebellion was just beginning to organize itself. They had spent the next few years helping to shape the rebellion into what it had become.

There was a note from Grand Admiral Thrawn made in both of their files. The data stamp indicated it had been added towards the end of their active service in the Rebellion, just a few months before the liberation of Lothal.

_Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren have been seen working together more and more throughout the past year. The effectiveness of their team work has proven to be very effective against the Empire. Wherever they go, trouble, and no doubt a large explosion, seems to follow them. More than one ISD has been lost to the pair. Despite numerous attempts to kill or capture these rebels, they have so far managed to escape unharmed._

_From studying holo recordings of these two, their synchrony, their reliance on one another, the way they follow each other around, the amount of trust each has put in the other, even the frequent smiles that can be observed when they catch sight of their partner, I cannot help but wonder if there is a deeper relationship present than they let on. I would not be surprised to learn that their friendship is a mere facade, much like the relationship between the Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus and the Twi'lek Captain Hera Syndula, who are not as discrete as they believe themselves to be._

_It would be a curious match to say the least, what with the Mandalorian's strong cultural hatred of Jedi, and the Jedi code's stance on attachments, but both Bridger and Jarrus stray from the code on many points and somehow seem to have managed to obtain a good rapport with the Mandalorians they have encountered. A union between the two teens may yet be possible._

_I may be mistaken in my judgement, or maybe Bridger and Wren do not yet realize what they mean to each other, but it would be unwise to discount the possibility that a romantic relationship between the two exists. It may be a trait worth exploiting should the occasion and opportunity ever present itself._

Looking at them now, K-4 could not quite tell which was the truth. Were Sabine and Ezra mates? Or were they just good friends? He did not know, but from what he had observed of the two so far, he couldn't help but agree with Thrawn's observations. When Ezra and Sabine had boarded the Calumnitus, Sabine had carried no weapon on her, instead allowing her safety to be placed in the hands of Ezra. He had no doubt that given the opportunity, Ezra would do the same. They worked together well, supported one another and trusted each other enough to fall asleep with the other in their arms, as they had the night before. K-4R1 was curious, so he decided to ask, "Are you two romantically involved?"

Both Sabine and Ezra sat up quickly, shocked at the question that had just been asked. Their cheeks were turning a deep shade of red. "No," Ezra said a little too quickly, "We're not together. I mean we travel together, but we're not together, together. Romantically I mean."

Sabine shook her head, amused by Ezra's nervous ramblings.

"But you do have feelings for one another," K-4 pointed out.

Ezra and Sabine shared a look. Sabine was nervous. K-4 had given her the perfect opportunity. All she had to do was say yes. Just one simple little word and maybe her hopes and dreams would come true.

Ezra too was nervous. He and Sabine had a good thing going on. He was fairly certain she had feelings for him and wanted to take the next step in their relationship, but she was still hesitating he saw, and he didn't want to ruin what they had. So, he said the only thing he could think of to keep things normal between them, "No."

K-4 nodded, "Alright," he said, then turned back to the ladder and climbed out of view.

Sabine stared at Ezra in utter shock. He had said no. Ezra had said no.

Why had he said no?

Ezra knew he's done something wrong the second he turned back to look at Sabine. Her force signature had shrunk and faded slightly, but even more distressingly, he couldn't feel her pain like it was his own. Her natural walls had come up and, whether she knew it or not, cut off his connection with her. He had no idea he could want to feel pain so badly before, but he needed to feel something from the end of their bond. He'd become so accustomed to her presence with him no matter how far apart they were. Sabine was just always there, it was a fact of life. They shared everything together, the good and the bad, but now, he could feel nothing, and it was utter torture to his senses. He needed something, even if it was just a sliver of a feeling. Anything would be better than nothing.

Sabine schooled her features, got up and marched over to the ladder. She grabbed the rung and started climbing out of sight.

"Sabine!" Ezra called, but she paid it no heed, continued upwards and stormed to her room with Ezra following after her. She shut the door in his face and locked it, effectively sealing him out. He began pounding on it, trying in vain to get it to open, but Sabine was ignoring him. He could easily open it with a wave of his hand over the controls, but they both knew he wouldn't. Instead, Ezra sank to the floor, his head held in his hands.

"What just happened?"

**(A/N) EZRA YOU IDIOT!**

**So, I originally didn't plan on writing this chapter and instead just go straight into what I have planned for chapter 17, but then after finishing off 15 the way I did, I figured we needed one more chapter to explore the new crew dynamics before getting to anything more substantial. The plan was to have this to be just a nice sweet chapter where we can get to know K-4R1 a little bit more. Then next thing you know his curiosity pushes things a little too far and Ezra is saying "no" and I'm yelling at him for being such a nerf herder. **

**I was just as shocked as you all were about how things went down. There was no plan for this whatsoever. Also, pnew106s, I hold you at least half responsible for this turn of events. I was considering you suggestion when K-4 asked about the state of Ezra and Sabine's relationship. It's all in good fun though. Just goes to show how reviews can shape this story however.**


	17. Chapter 17

**(A/N) Sorry this wasn't out at it's normal time, but yeah, I was travelling across the country for a wedding. I also believe I forgot to mention that Westward Glance has been kindly editing this story for me. So yeah, thank you West and everyone else, go check out his stuff.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**HistoryObsessedSciFiNerd16: Yep, he did.**

**LethalJustice94: That's putting it mildly.**

**pnew106s: I thought about that, but you'll just have to wait and see what happens.**

**Brandon Palmer: Thank you**

**Guest 1: I doubt there will be a sequel to this, but I guess we'll see what happens. If the inspiration strikes me when I end this fic, maybe I'll write a few one shots or something like that.**

**Guest 2: Thank you, I rather enjoyed it.**

**Guest 3: Yeah, but guys can be quite dense sometimes, myself included so…I wouldn't quite count Sabine innocent in this mess either.**

**Guest 4: K-4R1 is the same model as K-2S0. I was glad to introduce him to the story. He's my first real attempt at actually making a character. My other fic, Distubred Reflections, has a few OC's, but I didn't put much effort into them to be honest.**

**Chapter 17**

Ezra tossed and turned throughout the night and got up far earlier than he normally would have. He was hoping to catch Sabine before she began her daily workout, but breakfast had come and gone and still she had not made an appearance. He sighed and decided to go to her. He threw a few space waffles in the toaster to bring as a peace offering. Maybe the temptation of food would be enough to lure her out?

"Sabine is still in her room," K-4R1 stated as he walked entered from the living room.

Ezra sighed, "Yes."

"Why is she still in her room?"

"Because she's not very happy with me right now."

"And this is how she acts when she is upset with you."

"Nope. She usually yells at me while we're sparing."

K4 pondered this for a moment, "I see. In that case, I shall take it upon myself to oversee the ship's functions in the absence of Sabine," he said and then turned around to head towards the cockpit.

Ezra dismissed the Droid from his mind when the space waffles popped. He set to work preparing them just the way Sabine liked them, a little bit of syrup and lots of fruit on top, then carefully carried the plate up the ladder and to her room. There was no answer when he knocked. "Sabine?" he called. There was still no answer, "I brought you space waffles." The silence continued on for a few more seconds before the door slide open. Sabine was straight faced and dressed in her full set of armour, much to Ezra's disappointment. He'd gotten somewhat used to seeing her with it off.

They both just stared at each other, neither quite sure what to say. Ezra started rubbing the back of his head just from the sheer awkwardness of the situation, "Look Sabine, I'm sorry-"

"No," Sabine sighed as she held up a hand to interrupt him, "I should be the one apologising. I overreacted last night. I know what you we're trying to do. I just-"

The door to the cockpit slid open and K4 walked out, "Ah, Ezra, Sabine, just who I was looking for. We have a problem."

They both turned to him and braced themselves for deceleration as they noticed through the window that they were reverting to real space, "Why are we coming out of hyperspace?" Sabine asked.

"We are almost out of fuel," K4 replied.

"What?" she asked as she marched over to the cockpit, snagging the plate of space waffles from Ezra as she did so. She set the plate down on the dashboard and began checking different instruments in the control panel while popping bits of fruit in her mouth. Ezra and K-4 filed in behind her. "Haar'chak!" she yelled. "We lost more fuel than I thought- no that I can't be right. I checked the fuel level right after I replaced the fuel line."

"I suspect the Nightbrother altered the gauge to show a false fuel level," K4 said.

Sabine sighed, grabbed another piece of fruit, then turned back to the control panels, "I'm picking up a small moon not too far from here on the scanners," she said between mouthfuls, "I'm reading signs of technology, so we may be able to fill up there."

Ezra was staring out the cockpit window, his mouth open in slight awe, "That's no moon."

A large metal tower hung suspended in the middle of space. A giant ring spun around the center of the tower held in place by two spokes, and two smaller rings at the bottom and the top rotated the opposite direction. The structure glittered blue, green, red and every other colour imaginable with the light shining through thousands of port holes.

"What is this place?" Sabine asked.

"Space Station BDT-0978," K4 answered.

Ezra did a quick search of the station, "It's known as The Wheel. The whole structure is basically one big casino."

Sabine groaned, "Which means the price of everything is going to be inflated."

"Yep," Ezra agreed, "K4, stand by to take control of the ship. I don't want another Makem Te incident."

"My name is not K4, it is K-4R1."

"Just do it."

K4 turned and plugged himself into the ship, while Ezra and Sabine made contact with the station and found a place to land.

"Alright, let's get this done as quickly as possible," Ezra said, "We're going to be charged for our space by the minute if we're just refueling."

Sabine sighed, "We've got another problem."

"What now?"

"We had barely enough credits to get us to Tatooine. Now, we'll be lucky to make it to Mon Gazza. We need to find someway to make credits and fast or we'll never make it to Malastar."

Ezra slumped into his chair, "Great. Well, we might as well get the fuel anyways. We're not going anywhere without it. We can figure out something once we're away from this place."

As soon as they landed K-4 took control of the ship and locked the Nightbrother out of communication with the space station. The three of them then exited the ship and began to refill it manually. Rows upon rows of ships of almost every make, model, and colour they could conceive filled the hanger. Pretty well all of them cost probably five times more than the Nightbrother did brand new. Even if you didn't count the obvious change in apparel between them and the other patrons in the hanger, who were all wearing expensive suits and flashy dresses, Ezra and Sabine stood out like a sore thumb.

"People are staring." Ezra whispered to Sabine.

"Just ignore them and let's get this done," She said, "The sooner we finish, the sooner we can get out of here and figure out how we're going to get to Tatooine."

"About that," K4 interrupted, "I have a solution."

"Oh?"

"Do not look now, but there is an Ithorian over there with a bounty of 200,000 credits on him."

Both Sabine and Ezra gave K4 their full and undivided attention, "Say what now?" Ezra asked.

"The Ithorian in the corner-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I heard you the first time."

"Then why did-"

"What I mean is, how do you know?"

"I have facial recognition software installed and access to the holo-net, both the legal and illegal version. I am constantly scanning people to identify potential threats. It is how I knew who you were on our first meeting. The Ithorian's name is Dugg Pundi, male, age 37 standard years. He is currently wanted by the Black Sun syndicate for killing one of their higher-ranking member's son during a robbery five years ago."

"We're not taking a bounty on someone for Black Sun," Sabine said.

"I had a feeling you would say that," K4 said, "Which is why it was not the only option I prepared. There is another bounty in this hangar. The Aqualish over by that Corellian YG-4210. He has a bounty of 50,000 credits on him. Name, Ponda Baba, male, age 68 Standard Years. The man beside him also has a bounty of 50,000 credits on him. Name, Dr. Cornelius Evazan, male, age 71 Standard Years. He has been given the death sentence in 12 systems. Both bounties have been issued by the New Republic for the crimes of smuggling, stealing, illegal and forced medical surgeries, sentient trafficking, and murder, among various other crimes. Both are considered armed and dangerous."

Ezra smiled, "Ok, that's a bounty I can get behind."

They had a quick strategy session, then K-4 walked into the ship, while Ezra and Sabine grabbed their helmets and made their way towards their targets. Ezra walked straight up to the pair of criminals while Sabine kept out of sight to cover him just in case he got in trouble.

"Excuse me," Ezra said to get their attention when he got close. Both criminals turned on him, their hands reaching for their weapons. Baba was a typical Aqualish, dark fur, big black eyes, a large bulbous nose and a couple of red fleshy nubs where his mouth should be. Ezra took note that his right arm was cybernetic, rather than flesh and bone. His counterpart, Dr. Evazan, was a human with a twisted and scarred face that not even a mother could love. Ezra raised his hands in a calming gesture, keeping his hands away from his blaster, "Woah, no need for violence, uh, Dr. Evazan I presume?"

The man curled his lips into a sneer, "Who's asking?" he growled, the smell of alcohol was strong on his breath.

"Jabba the Hutt," Ezra answered, "I could use a man of your expertise."

Baba, snarled, holstered his weapon and turned away from the conversation, no longer interested in what was being said.

Dr. Evazan ignored his friend and continued the conversation, "Is that so?" he sneered.

"Yep, see I recently took on a couple crew members on board. They've slipped into a coma. Quite recently I might add. See, I've acquired a device that might ease them back into consciousness and maybe make them… more compliant at the same time if you catch my drift. I simply have no way of performing the surgery myself."

The man's eyes brightened, immediately catching on to Ezra's bait, "An what wouud I be gettiin ouut of this?"

Ezra smiled, "Oh, you would be well compensated, don't worry."

"I require dowm payment, on my ah, expaartise."

Ezra frowned. That was unexpected, but he could recover from this. "I seem to be a bit light on funds at the moment, at least until my contact comes to look over the merchandise I currently have aboard, but I have many, uh, exotic beauties, on board my ship. I'm sure we could come to some sort of, _arrangement_."

That caught the both of the criminal's attention. "Ah, well les juus go see whaat we got then," Dr. Evazan said, greed and something else that Ezra didn't want to acknowledge in his eye.

Ezra led the pair away from their ship and into the Nightbrother. It was when the were inside the ship and out of the eyesight of any witnesses that Ezra felt a warning through the force. He turned and ignited his lightsaber to deflect the blaster bolts that the two thugs had attempted to put in his back.

Baba growled and Dr. Evazan's fake smile turned into a sneer. "Youu think you can get awaay with trickin us Jedi! You're not the fiirs of your kind we've come across."

The light in the eyes of a large droid to their right came on and K4 slammed Dr. Evazan on the head with his metal fist. The doctor fell to the ground in a heap of tangled limbs. Baba turned to fire at the droid when his blaster was knocked out of his hand by a well-placed shot by Sabine. Baba was out of options. All except one. He swung his metal arm in a wide arc, spraying fire from a concealed flamethrower, forcing everyone into cover and giving him the precious few seconds he needed to escape.

Ezra and Sabine ran after him as soon as they recovered.

"K4," Ezra yelled over his shoulder before he disappeared, "Tie up the prisoner and put out that fire!"

"My name is not K4, it is K-4R1!" The droid called out, but Ezra was already gone. K4, realizing he hadn't been heard, gave up and turned to work on the more important of the two tasks, putting out the small fire that had started. There wasn't much in the cargo hold for the flame to take hold of, just a little piece of plastic trim and a small section of the rubber gripping on the floor, so it was out quickly. After that, it was just a matter of watching over his captive and knocking him on the head whenever he started to stir. Of course, it would have been much easier if they had a brig to throw him in. Why didn't they have a brig? He made a note to tell Ezra and Sabine to get a brig.

Ezra and Sabine chased Baba through a set of fancy doors into a scene of barely organized chaos. The room was wide massive. It had to have been 100 meters wide and a couple thousand meters long. The ceiling was easily three stories above their head. A series of balconies stretched on even further above that. The carpet was red and there were many brightly coloured, flashing lights everywhere. Tables had been set up throughout the room where people could play anything from sabaac to slot machines, and there had to have been a couple hundred patrons of all species milling about the place. It would have been easy to lose Baba in the chaos, had the thug not been bowling people over in his haste to get away. Ezra and Sabine ran past a few frightened guests and made good time catching up to their target, their progress made much easier by the path baba had cleared for them.

Baba, seeing Ezra and Sabine catching up to him, pushed a protocol droid to the ground and grabbed the table it was attending to throw it in the path of his pursuers. He then began grabbing other objects, a couple chairs, drinks, credits, people, more tables, anything he could get his paws on into the path he had created. This elicited both cheers from those who were losing and a scramble for any loose chips or credits that had gone flying. It was all a laughable distraction to the Jedi-Mandalorian wrecking crew. They'd been faced with much worse challenges than a couple tables and broken glass and they merely leapt over or cut through the carnage with ease and continued the chase, much to Baba's dismay.

They had almost caught him by the time they made it to the other side of the room when Baba turned around and unleashed another burst of flame from his arm. This time however, Ezra and Sabine were ready for it. Ezra used the force to deflect the blast of fire up into the air and away from anyone it might harm while Sabine dodged to the left and around the burst of flame. She kicked her leg out and took Baba's feet out from underneath him, causing him to fall to the ground with a heavy thud. The Aqualish growled and struck his metal fist out towards Sabine to try and get her off him, but a quick swipe from Ezra's lightsaber severed the arm off at his shoulder. Baba roared in pain and tried to squirm away. Sabine pointed the end of her blaster in his face, stopping him dead in his tracks. He raised his one remaining arm in surrender.

Sabine smiled. "See, now that wasn't so hard."

Ezra grabbed the metal arm from where it lay on the ground and started prodding their prisoner back to the ship, ignoring the pointed stares from all the people gathered around them. They did notice a large group of security guards gathering near the door that they would likely have to go through, but it was the angry guests that confronted them first.

"I had a winning hand!"

"I lost a few thousand credits worth of chips to the floor because of you!"

"You chased away my date!"

"Now how am I supposed to pay for my house!"

"My 10,000 credit suit is ruined!"

Ezra thought fast. "Uh, there's a table for sabaac, go see who gets his ship," he said, pointing to Ponda Baba, he then reinforced his suggestion through the use of the force and thankfully, it worked.

Now they just had to deal with the security guards. They were asked a lot of questions and checked their ID's and tried to arrest them, but Ezra and Sabine hadn't actually caused any of the damage to the place and hadn't actually committed any crimes themselves. The floor manager ended up coming out at some point and demanded they pay for the damages and banned them from ever stepping foot in the wheel again. When it was discovered that Ezra and Sabine had no money at the time, he tried to force them to open a tab, but then Ezra reminded him that in order to pay off the tab, they would have to come back. He then tried to take Baba away from them, but another quick force suggestion finally got them out with their prisoner.

They returned to the ship and met back up with K4. Dr. Evazan was still unconscious on the ground and probably heavily concussed. They brought him back around with some smelling salts and then locked the two prisoners in one of the spare cabins. K4 volunteered to keep watch since he didn't have to sleep like Ezra and Sabine did.

They finished re-fueling the ship with what little credits they had left and took off back into space as soon as they could. When they were finally back into hyperspace, Sabine and Era took a moment to the moment to relax and enjoy their success. It had been a while since either of them had had any action and it felt good.

Ezra wondered briefly if now would be a good time to bring up the fight from the previous night and get everything out in the open, but decided against it. The were a team again, and he could just faintly feel the bond he had with Sabine in the force again. He didn't want to risk losing what little connection she was allowing him, or to see her disappear into her room again. Maybe leaving things be would allow them to go back to normal.


	18. Chapter 18

**(A/N) Well, here we go again. Hope you guys enjoy this one.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**LethalJustice94: Thanks**

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**sabinewren20.22: I'm glad you enjoyed it**

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**Guest 1, + Achillies453: Yeah, I had lots of fun with that chapter. **

**Chapter 18**

It took a couple days for the Nightbrother to reach the planet of Taanab, where Ezra and Sabine were able to offload Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba, collect the bounty, and properly refuel their ship. From there they travelled back down the rest of the Perlemian Trade route until they reached Brentaal, transferred onto the Hydian Way, followed it to Denon, then took the Correllian Run all the way to the jump point to Tatooine.

Their journey was unhindered and peaceful. Ezra and Sabine quickly fell back into their old habits of eating, sleeping, training, and doing everyday maintenance and cleaning. K-4R1 would help out where he could, made sure the Nightbrother was behaving itself, and found various activities to keep himself entertained.

The little fight Ezra and Sabine had wasn't mentioned again. Ezra was extra careful around Sabine for the first few days, even if she had stopped wearing her armour when it was just them again. They didn't sleep together anymore, but the force bond they shared had regained its previous strength. Things were starting to return to normal and both were happy to leave things as they were. K-4 had been confused at first, but a glare from both Sabine and Ezra had shut him up and the topic had since become a taboo that no one dared to approach ever since.

That was why when they finally appeared over Tatooine, they were a little hesitant to actually go down and upset the delicate balance of their life now. Kyler Moive was an unknown entity. They weren't sure how long the woman would be staying with them or what changes she would create in their group dynamic. She was paying them 11,000 credits though. The sum seemed trivial in the face of the 100,000 they'd made off the bounties they'd collected at The Wheel, but 11,000 credits was still a lot of money.

Somewhat reluctantly, they commed Kyler and began the descent to the planet. She was purposely vague about her location, too paranoid to just give it to them just in case someone was listening in on their conversation. They did eventually zero in on her though and landed in a canyon in the middle of the desert.

The planet's twin suns had just started to disappear behind the horizon, casting the desert in shades of purple and blue, and the temperature was rapidly beginning to plummet.

The Nightrbother's ramp slid open to let Sabine, Ezra, and K-4 walk down into the open. Sabine had her full set of armour on, her face hidden behind her helmet, and Ezra made sure his lightsaber was strapped to his hip.

"Miss. Moive?" Ezra called out when no one appeared, his voice echoing off the canyon walls.

He was just about to call out again when a bush 10 meters above them moved and a blond woman poked her head out. She was shouldering an E-11 blaster and had it pointed right at them, "Ezra? Sabine?" She asked.

"Yep," Sabine answered. "Now put that blaster away and let's get out of here before any unwanted visitors arrive."

Kyler lowered her blaster while still keeping it within easy reach, and crept down the cliff's face, ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. She eyed them warily, assessing whether or not the two of them were actually trying to help her. The large black droid that hovered behind them unnerved her. It's glowing white eyes seemed to be studying her, trying to reveal her darkest secrets.

"Mrs. Kyler Moive," it said. "Known Alias for Rachel Shepard." Kyler eyes widened in fear at the use of that name. No one had called her Rachel Shepard in years. To her utter horror, the droid continued on, "Female, age 25. Born on Tatooine. Other known alias' for Rachel Shepard: Davos Filch, McKenzie Carddenas, Yadira Schneider, Brenna Roy, Lilian Kemp, Monica Carroll, Stacy Huffman, Kiana Moyer, and Evelin McCarthy. Previous known affiliations: The Filch Syndicate. Current status: Presumed dead. Current posted bounty: 200,000 credits upon the delivery of Kyler Moive, dead or alive, to Crimson Dawn."

As soon as the word bounty was mentioned, Kyler… no, Rachel, raised her blaster in a threatening motion. "Don't come anywhere near me," she said and started backing away.

Ezra and Sabine both raised their arms, "Whoa," Ezra said. "Easy there. We aren't going to turn you in."

Rachel didn't lower her blaster. "Why should I trust you? 200,000 credits is a lot of money."

"You have my word as a Jedi," Ezra said.

"And mine as a Mandalorian. May my honor be forever tainted if I was to turn you in."

"They already had the opportunity to turn a similar bounty in, but refused," K-4 stated.

Rachel's hand wavered for a moment as she pondered their statements. The Jedi were many things. Once, the Jedi had been legendary protectors of peace and a force for good in the galaxy. The Empire had painted them as bloodthirsty tyrants. She wasn't sure which version was true, and didn't care really.

On the other hand, the Mandalorians were Mandalorians. They had a reputation for being cold, hardened warriors, but valued honor and duty above all else. There were still a few clans that were less inclined to follow the traditional ways, but from what she had read of the two on the holonet, they may be telling the truth...

Ezra turned his head, as if he had seen something none of the rest had. His lightsaber appeared in his hand and a green blade rose out of the falling darkness. Kyler almost fired at him when some unseen force pushed her to the ground, mere fractions of a second before a red blaster bolt would have passed through her head.

"K-4!" Ezra yelled. "Get in the ship and get those engines started!"

"My name is K-4R1." The droid huffed, but turned to go do as he was told anyways.

Ezra turned his attention back to Rachel and helped her into cover behind a rock. "The time for thinking is over," he said, reflexively ducking as a blaster bolt slammed into the stone. "Either you trust us, or you don't, but either way it looks like you've been found. Are you coming with us or not?"

The Nightbrother's engines started, their roar echoing through the canyon.

"If you are then get on the ship." Sabine yelled over the noise. "The sooner you're on board, the sooner we can get out of here."

Kyler scrambled to her feet and ran to the ship, firing as fast as she could at the top of the cliff the whole way. More blaster fire erupted from multiple sources and tried to burn a hole through her body, but Ezra swiftly fell in line behind her with his lightsaber swinging to deflect any fire away from them. Sabine, seeing that most of the attention was on Ezra and Rachel, and Ezra was easily holding his own, broke cover and ran for safety.

As soon as they were all on board Sabine hit the ramp controls. "K-4!" Ezra yeled into his comm. "Get us out of here now!"

The droid didn't waste any time with a reply, took off and guided the Nigthbrother out of the canyon. The three humans hurried as fast as they could up to the cockpit and Sabine took over from the droid as Ezra began checking their scanners.

"I can't see any ships on our scopes. Looks like we're clear for now." he said.

"Just keep your eyes open," Sabine replied. "We're not safe until we make the jump to hyperspace."

The journey up out of Tatooine's atmosphere and into space went surprisingly smooth and before too long, the Nightbrother was back in hyperspace. Too smoothly for K-4R1's taste, "Well that is disappointing. I was hoping for a dogfight."

"Yeah, well I'm glad." Sabine said.

Ezra turned to the droid, "K-4."

"My name is not K-4. It is K-4R1."

"Yeah, I'm not saying that every time. We'll figure out a better name for you later. Right now, I need you to run a scan of the ship and make sure there are no tracking or listening devices onboard."

The droid wordlessly left the cockpit to complete his appointed task.

Seeing things were at a relative calm, Ezra turned to face their guest, "So… Rachel?"

Rachel glared at him, "I guess the secrets out then."

"It would seem so."

A few seconds of silence settled over them.

"Is there a story we're going to get or...?" Ezra asked.

"No, there is not."

"Alright," he said, letting her keep her secrets. "Well, I seem to remember we had an arrangement."

Kyler bit her lip nervously, "About that… My money was in the cave back on Tatooine. Along with everything else I own in the world."

Ezra shook his head and smiled, "You're lucky we ran into a good amount of cash recently or we wouldn't be going far. We'll take you with us to Malastare and settle up when you can."

"You would trust me? Just like that? For all you know I could just up and disappear into thin air, never to be seen again."

"Lucky for you, we don't mind helping out those in need." He could feel Sabine smirking at him from under her helmet.

"Well, then... Thank you very much. I owe you my life," she said. She wasn't sure what to make of this. In her experience, people rarely did things out of the goodness of their heart. They had to be getting something out of this, right? There was still that posted bounty. She'd be keeping a close eye on them. "I'll uhh, just go get settled in then." She rose and clutched her rifle to her chest, looking at it sadly. "Could I uh, trouble you for a long-distance communicator? I need to call someone."

Ezra tossed her his communicator. "I'll need that back when your done. The fresher's in the back. First two rooms are taken, but the other two are free, take your pick."

She looked at him curiously. "Is there another person on this ship or?"

"Nope. Just us." Ezra smiled.

"Oh. I thought you two were, you know…"

"Nope." Ezra said, and left it at that. He desperately hoped she wouldn't press the issue. Things had gone poorly the last time that button was pushed.

"Ok." she said, then left the cockpit.

When the door closed and Rachel was gone, Sabine took off her helmet. She was smiling.

"What?"

"You."

"What do you mean me?"

"Your always helping those in need."

"Do you disapprove of what I did?"

Sabine laughed, "I wouldn't be smiling if I did."

o~0~O~0~o

The door closed behind Rachel with an audible whoosh. The following silence was deafening.

She took her her surroundings. Grey walls, a single bed, a dresser, an armour stand, and a small closet.

She didn't have much with her to unpack so she threw her blaster on the bed and flopped down beside it.

She lay there for a few moments, collecting her thoughts and absentmindedly playing with Ezra's communicator. She had been protecting herself and others when she faked her death all those years ago. What would they think of her making a call out of the blue?

She really didn't want to make this call, but she knew she had to, if only so they had some warning of what might happen.

With a sigh, she input the proper frequency and waited for the call to connect.

After a few rings, a blond haired man answered. His eyes went wide upon seeing her face. Rachel smiled timidly, "Hey… dad."

**(A/N) Hope you all enjoyed this. Don't forget to follow favourite and review. It really means a lot when you do. I also have a couple of questions for you. What do you think of Rachel? And guesses as to her back story? ANd can any of you guess what direction I'm taking this story from here?**


	19. Chapter 19

**(A/N) Well, here's another one. It's kind of short, but I hope you all enjoy it anyways.**

**Guest Reviews: **

**pnew106s: I get to them as soon as I can**

**pocotokomu: The romance is coming.**

**Mogor: ;P**

**MinSul6011: Thanks for taking the time to leave a review! I always love finding out what people think of the story. It makes it so much more fun to write this when you know people love it. **

**Spectre6: Won't be too much longer I hope.**

**Brandan Palmer: Unfortunately, it's not really possible for me to update more frequently, but I post when I can. Thanks for your thoughts!**

**Guest 1: I believe that at this point in the timeline all the inquisitors are dead, and I'm going to try and keep this as close to canon as I can until some new show or movie blows this out of the water. I'm also not 100% sure what will happen with Rachel at this point, so we shall see.**

**Guest 2: Your on the right track.**

**Ezrabine: I upload every second Saturday**

**Ramage: Thanks for the compliments! **

**Achillies453: They're back to normal for now, but how long does normal last with these two?**

**TheForceisStrongWithThisOne: I remember getting your first review, and then your second about 5 minutes later, and then the third, and fourth… You had my hovering by my phone, eagerly awaiting your next review until you finished it. Thank you very much for taking the time to leave your thoughts. I'll do my best to answer some of your more pressing questions, otherwise this will probably take a page or two to answer. Luke's new jedi order will come up. I would assume that Yoda would have contacted him while he was in the unknown regions, or he would have had an experience like Kanan and become a Jedi Knight. For this fic, it doesn't really matter much so I'm leaving it open ended for the reader to decide. I think lightsabers have training modes on them. Thanks for all your comments and I hope you enjoy this chapter just as much as you've been enjoying the rest.**

**Chapter 19**

_"Hey… Dad."_

The man stared back at her in shock, his eyes wide with disbelief. "Rachel?" he asked.

She smiled at him, happy to be able to see his face again after all these years. There were a few more wrinkles on his face than she remembered, but other than that he seemed to be in great shape.

"Yes indeed. It's dear old Rachel," a bone chilling voice she knew all too well spoke from off screen, wiping the smile off her face. The image of the holoprojector turned to show a man in stormtrooper armour. "After all these years away… How nice of you to finally call home."

"No!" her dad yelled from off screen. "Let me see her! My daughter! Please!"

Rachel set her lips in a grim line of aloofness, a cold, calculating look in her eyes to hide the terror she felt. She'd been forced to learn to put on many masks over the years, and it was second nature to her at this point when confronting an old enemy. To a man like this, sentiment was a weakness, and she couldn't afford to show an ounce of it right now.

The Stormtrooper's helmet turned, as if regarding the man she could no longer see. "Take him away," he said. "Put him with the others."

Rachel forced herself to ignore her dad's screams to be allowed to see his daughter and focused on the man who now held him captive. "Hello Davos. Long time no see." Even with all her experience in dealing with unpleasant situations, she surprised herself at how even her voice came out.

"It has been a long time, hasn't it? Three or four years since I watched you get shot before my very own eyes. Quite a convincing show you put on. Tell me? Who was the woman you had stand in your place? A sister I didn't know about perhaps? A cousin? No, you care about your family too much. Maybe you somehow managed to find a random stranger who looked exactly like you? How much did you pay them I wonder? Or maybe they were forced?"

Rachel glared at him, trying to force down the memories, the guilt that still plagued her to this day. "I see no reason to tell you."

Davos nodded his head. "You play things closer to the chest than when I knew you. Good. Wouldn't want to make things too easy now would we?"

"What is this about Davos?" Rachel asked, deciding to get right to the point, "You obviously want me to turn myself in, right? How do I ensure my family's safety?"

Davos chuckled, a sound that sickened her. "You know, you surprised me. I figured after we dismantled your entire operation, killed all your contacts and the friends you didn't even think we knew about, you never once called home to see if we had found your family or not. I was almost beginning to give up hope that you'd call dear old dad. I was close to selling him to the spice miners on Kessel you know... And then there's your sister. I've had a few offers on her already you know. Such a beautiful young lady. Very desirable. It's only because I know of how fiercely protective of her you are that I haven't sold her yet."

He was trying to get under her skin, show her that he held all the power here. She gave no indication what he said affected her. "Get to the point," She said, throwing as much annoyance as she could into her tone, "Your wasting both my time and yours. Do you want me or not?"

"A day ago, I would have gladly accepted your death for family's release," he said. "You've been an annoying thorn in my side and I'd be glad to be rid of you for good. But that was before you crossed paths with the Jedi. You see, you've become a much more valuable... _asset_, since then."

Rachel narrowed her eyes, "What do you mean, asset?"

"I mean, I want to know everything about the Jedi. I want to know his habits, the habits of his friend, the Mandalorian. What do they use their droid for? What are they hauling. What condition is their ship in? Anything useful you can find out I want to know. But here are the most important pieces of information I need. I want detailed reports of all crew members, past, present and future, and I need to know where they are and where they are going at all times."

"What do you want with the Jedi?" Rachel asked.

"Me personally? Nothing yet. No, he is merely an avenue to new and better prospects." Davos said, "An investment of sorts. There are others who would pay quite the price for any information they can get on the Jedi. E_specially_ this one. It used to be much easier to track him, but then he picked up that droid. Now, with conventional methods unavailable, I intend to be the sole supplier of intel on Ezra Bridger." Rachel could imagine him grinning behind that bucket of his. "Do this for me, and I will ensure that no harm comes to your family. I'll even have Crimson Dawn remove the bounty on you and let you go free when this is all over… providing you agree to never again set foot on Tatooine."

Rachel sighed. She really didn't want to do this. The less interaction she had with that desert rat the better. But as long as he had her family, she had no choice. "Fine, but there is one problem. I'm only supposed to be on this ship for another couple of days, then I'm gone."

Davos' voice turned cold and angry, "Then find a reason to stay, or dear old dad and your precious sister won't live to see the next sunrise."

Rachel thought frantically, trying to buy herself and her family time, but her face showed none of the panic. "Wait I…" She had to think of something, anything! An idea came to her, "…may have a solution." She closed her eyes and pushed back the fresh wave of guilt that threatened to overwhelm her. Just because she didn't quite trust Ezra and Sabine yet didn't mean she wanted to betray them like this. They seemed like nice people, but she had no choice. "I just need a couple of things from you."

Davos listened intently as she detailed her plan, taking into consideration the costs and risks involved before coming to a decision. "This is an acceptable proposition. Do this for me and I will secure the release of your father and sister, and let you go free. But, fail me, and your family pays in whatever way I see fit."

Davos didn't even bother waiting for her reply and closed the connection. The blue glow of the hologram on the walls receded, bathing her room in quiet darkness.

She lay on her bed for several hours, drowning in her own misery. There would be no sleep tonight. Fear for her family and nightmares of her past kept her awake.

She finally had enough of wallowing in despair and decided to explore the ship. She needed a distraction, something to take her mind off this latest tragedy.

She already knew the top floor, so she climbed down the ladder to the second level. There was a small ill-equipped kitchen, a dungy living room and a state of the art medbay. These people had weird priorities, unless maybe they hadn't redecorated from when Maul owned the ship.

Two glowing white lights turned on in the corner and a large black object moved, startling her. She grabbed her E-11 from off it's shoulder strap and only just managed to not blast him. "Woah! K-4, don't scare me like that."

"I would not suggest shooting me in such close quarters. My armour would protect me long enough to detain you."

"How did you even know I was here? You were powered down."

"Even in standby mode I am constantly scanning for any potential threats."

"Oh." Well that was at least something she could report back to Davos. Not that she enjoyed helping him in the least.

A few moments of silence stretched out between them. "What are you doing up so late Mrs. Sheppard?"

"Couldn't sleep," she said. "I got a lot on my mind." She turned and flopped down on the couch. She winced as her back hit the cushion. It was a little bit firmer than she first assumed.

"What sort of quandaries are you processing?" K-4 asked.

"Lots of things." She said, "I don't really want to talk about them."

"Acknowledged."

Kyler sighed. If the droid was talking, she might as well go fishing. Maybe she could learn something valuable, so Davos wouldn't think this was a waste of time and just get rid of her father and sister. "So, Ezra and Sabine really aren't a couple, huh?"

"Negative."

"That surprises me. A good looking guy like him, a good looking girl like her... flying in a ship all by themselves… Just seems logical they'd be together."

"They are not."

"They're not even sleeping together?"

"Platonically once. On the couch you are sitting on."

"Huh. That's surprising."

"It surprised me as well when I learned."

"Oh?"

"My initial observations upon my arrival indicated a romantic bond between the too. When the topic was brought up, a fight ensued, and they avoided each other for the rest of the day."

Rachel smiled in spite of herself. "So, they want to be a couple then. They just haven't admitted it yet."

"That is a possibility, but I would not know."

"Hmmm." Rachel started giving this a little thought. She doubted Davos would let her remain a neutral party in all this for long. If he wanted the Jedi, he would try to divide and conquer, forcing her to try and get in between these two. She had no doubt the bond Sabine and Ezra shared was strong, but it could be stronger still. If she could get them together, maybe they would be better prepared for whatever Davos had in store for them. Maybe then, they could help her get out from under Davos' thumb.


	20. Chapter 20

**(A/N) Hey everyone I'm back and a day early at that. I'm taking off into the states for about a week in 15 minutes, so I figured I'd get this up before I leave. Enjoy :D**

**Guest Reviews:**

**TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: Something like that.**

**pnew106s: Rachel is an interesting character to say the least. I have some reveals about her coming up in a little bit. I'm not sure how soon they'll be, but I'll be interested to know what you think of her then.**

**Brandan Palmer: Thank you. Reviews like this are what keep me wanting to write more. I hope that I can keep on delivering an enjoyable story.**

**Spectre6: Lol**

**Person: I'm sorry you feel that way. What doesn't make sense to you? Maybe I need to go over a part of it again or can clear something up for you.**

**5ilverFoxx: Well that's why I wrote it. Glad your enjoying it.**

**Chapter 20**

Sabine was determined not to let Rachel's presence on board the Nightbrother upset the normal way of life for her and Ezra. She got up early as she did every day, though she did make sure to put her armour on, checked the ship's readings and made sure double sure the Nightbrother was actually displaying the correct levels, then went downstairs to start her morning workout. Or at least she would have if she hadn't heard noises coming from the holovision in the common area. Knowing she was normally the first one up, she decided to investigate and was surprised to see Rachel was awake already.

"Wow, you look horrible," Sabine said. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Rachel slowly turned her head to look at her. There were bags under her eyes and her hair was a mess. "Nah." She yawned, "Couldn't sleep. Too much on my mind."

Sabine leaned her figure against the door frame. "Like what?"

"No offense, but I don't need someone to someone to tell all my problems to right now." She chuckled sarcastically. "I mean it's not like you know what it's like to be kicked out of your home and have no way back. You don't know what it's like to have everyone you hold dear ripped from your life!"

"Actually, I do."

Rachel turned to her, stunned. "What?"

Sabine sighed, "When I was younger, I joined the imperial academy on Mandalore. I built weapons for them. Weapons I later found out were used against my people. So, I destroyed the weapons and the plans, then left. I hoped to rejoin my clan and hide. Instead I found myself cast out, declared dar'manda, never allowed to come back home again or risk death."

Rachel said nothing, just stared at her.

"Well," Sabine said, "There's space waffles and cereal in the kitchen. Feel free to help yourself. I'll be back in about an hour. And if you ever want someone to talk to, I'm here," Sabine said and left the room.

She went down to the hold, did her workout, and then went upstairs to shower. After she was done, she went back down to the kitchen to get something to eat. When she peeked around the corner, it didn't seem like Rachel had moved at all. She did appear to be a little more awake though, and her hair was arranged a little better now so who knew.

"I'm making myself some space waffles. Want any?" She asked.

Rachel shrugged, but got up and walked into the kitchen to help out. After a few seconds of silence, she decided to speak up. "So, you and the Jedi?"

"There's nothing going on between us," Sabine said as she put some of the waffles in the toaster and turned to grab some toppings from the fridge.

Rachel gave a small smile, "But you like him, don't you?" Sabine said nothing, so she continued goading her on. "Come on, it's just us girls. You can tell me."

"No," Sabine said, desperately trying to keep that can of worms from exploding again.

"So, you wouldn't mind if I took a pass at the Jedi then?"

Sabine rounded on her fast, "What?"

"Well, this is the closest thing I've had to a vacation in about three years. I don't see why I can't enjoy myself while I'm here, and you can't deny he's a bit of a looker. Who knows, things may even end up working out and I'll end up joining your crew," she smirked. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

"You will do no such thing," Sabine said with barely controlled fury.

"What's that I'm sensing here? Is that jealousy? No. It can't be jealousy. You don't have any feelings for him."

Sabine glared at her, "You stay away from him. He's mine."

The Space waffles popped.

Rachel grinned, knowing full well she was playing with fire. "You have until Malastare to tell him or I do. Until then, he's free game."

Before Sabine could protest, Rachel grabbed a couple Space waffles out of the toaster, turned, and hurried out of the room and up the ladder as fast as she could.

Sabine was left standing there, trying to figure out whether to call the woman's bluff or just shoot her, when Ezra climbed down the ladder a half a minute later.

"What's with Rachel?" he asked, giving the ladder she'd disappeared up a sideways glance.

"Nothing," Sabine said, a little too quickly.

Ezra gave her a funny look. "Doesn't sound like nothing."

"Just… leave it alone for now ok?"

Ezra shrugged. "Ok," he said. Then seeing that there were space waffles cooling off in the toaster, grabbed them both and bit into them.

"Ezra Bridger! Those were mine!"

"If im my mouf. Ferfore if mime," he teased with his mouth still full of Sabine's waffle.

She swatted him playfully and popped another set of waffles in the toaster. "You better be ready to have your butt kicked today."

Ezra swallowed his food and grinned back at her. "You can try."

o~0~O~0~o

Rachel met Ezra on her way to her room. "Hey there hot stuff," she said, giving him the cutest smile she could muster under the circumstances and then hurriedly retreated into her room and closed the door. She had no real intention of winning the Jedi's heart, but as long as she was here, she'd be making good on her threat to the Mandalorian. She was curious how the other woman would react. But as soon as she was alone her happy façade dropped, replaced with the broken woman she was underneath the mask. She sighed, flopped on her bed, and absentmindedly took a bite of the space waffle she had grabbed. It was like tasteless chalk in her mouth.

She replayed the conversation she'd had with Sabine in her head. It had been amusing to see the look on the Mando's face. Rachel had built the famous warrior race into an image of cold, unshakable, and aloof warriors in her mind's eye. So to see Sabine rendered speechless with one quip about a boy was worth any amount of wrath the Mandalorian could dish out.

It was a shame she couldn't fully enjoy it with thoughts of the noose Davos had tied around her family's neck plaguing her every waking thought.

She needed to figure out where Davos was keeping them and get them to safety, but hiring a bounty hunter to go after them cost money.

She needed to stay on board the Nightbrother in order to keep them alive, but staying under the protection of Ezra and Sabine would cost money.

She could only afford to do one, not both.

Then there were her personal debts. An annoyance that she couldn't spare enough concern to actually worry about right now. Not that they really mattered all that much. If she really needed to, she could easily make up a new persona, fake her death again, and disappear into the empty void of space. She'd done it before, she could do it again.

Faking her death and running wouldn't help her out of her more pressing dilemma right now though. If she disappeared, her dad and sister were as good as dead. She had to actually stick around and face this problem head-on.

Rachel gripped her head in her hands and attempted to will away the headache that was forming. Her life was a mess and she desperately needed a way out. No magic solution presented itself however and she resigned herself to playing Davos' little game… for now.


	21. Chapter 21

**(A/N) Happy New Year Everyone!**

**So, I'm back from the states. The trip was great. The money was weird and colourless, and I kept receiving strange copper disks in my change, but the food was great and I had fun! Still, it's good to be back home in the True North Strong and Free. **

**Hope you all enjoy the chapter. It's a little short, but sets up a lot.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**pnew106s: glad you like her. I'm kind of proud of what I have in store for Rachel.**

**TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: It's not Ezra I'd be worried about… yet. And yes, I have Disney Plus and have been watching the Mandalorian. I got to say, that Tatooine Episode almost threw this out of canon compliance for a little bit. Fixed it pretty quickly though so that was good.**

**Brandon Palmer: Glad your enjoying it.**

**Guest 1: Yeah, she's playing a dangerous game.**

**Hello-im-what-now: Glad your enjoying it :)**

**Achillies453: One can only hope eh?**

**Stormhound12: THese next few chapters are where things are going to start hopefully speeding up.**

**Nicky: Thanks. Glad you like it.**

**Ramage: Happy new year to you as well! Glad you're liking this story this much.**

**Red2: You're welcome. I've really been enjoying writing this for you guys. I'm just glad it's something other people can enjoy along with me.**

**hellothere209: Well I thank you for taking the time to leave a review. It makes writing this so much more fun when people engage with the story. I hope I can continue to deliver for you.**

**Chapter 21**

Sabine ejected an empty paint canister from her paint sprayer and inserted a new cartridge full of Byzantium purple. She swept her hand quickly over the canvas' surface and an angry mark appeared on the cliffside she was painting. Slowly but surely, the twin twin sunset she'd seen on Tatooine was appearing over the harsh, cold, desert landscape she'd painted.

Sabine was mad, and it showed. Her work was full of fast, sharp lines.

Everything had been fine. Things between her and Ezra were doing great. She had her best friend, her partner back and they were finally settling down into a somewhat normal life. For the first time in their existence, there was no Empire, no Rebellion, no war, no Thrawn or wild bantha chases into the unknown depths of space. It was finally just her and Ezra living their lives in peace and only worrying about the things normal people had to worry about, like bills and food, or what they were going to wear that day. For the first time in her life, there wasn't the ever-present fear lurking in the back of her mind that she'd lose someone she loved.

Then Rachel had come along and upset everything.

Because of her, they'd been shot at not once, but twice.

Because of her, they were probably being hunted by whoever Rachel had managed to tick off.

More importantly, because of her, she was more awkward than ever around Ezra.

Every time she had gone near him today Rachel's threat would work its way into her mind and she'd get all flustered to the point where she couldn't even talk to him properly. The memory of her and Ezra's fight was still fresh in her mind and she didn't want to go through that again.

To make matters worse, Rachel had apparently decided to make good on her threat to 'woo' Ezra. She'd been making cute faces at him and calling him "hot stuff" all day. She'd challenged Ezra to a sparring match earlier after she and Ezra were done and had gotten a little too handsy for her taste. Later, after supper, Sabine had nearly spit out her choco-calf when Rachel had asked the 'Master Jedi' to 'show her the Force'. Ezra, as dense as he was, had promptly levitated her off the ground.

When she started getting the urge to stun the woman and lock her in her cabin (or worse), Sabine had asked K-4 to keep an eye on Rachel and make sure she didn't get too bold around Ezra. She had then promptly disappeared into her room to take her anger out on the canvas in front of her.

Still, it was only for another day. Tomorrow, they'd arrive on Malastare. She and Ezra would unload the generator. Rachel would be out of their hair, and hopefully, things could go back to the way they were. She just needed to figure out a way to keep Rachel from confronting Ezra and revealing how she really felt for him.

Sabine didn't know what she would do if Ezra said no again.

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra settled into a meditative pose on the floor of his room and reached out to the Force. The light came to him gladly and soothed away the confusion and worry that had been built up throughout the day. For whatever reason, Sabine's emotions had been strained, and she'd been distant all day. The effects had traveled down the length of their bond to him, but whenever he had brought it up, Sabine had shrugged him off and said it was nothing.

Rachel on the other hand was an enigma. She was aloof, yet always close by. Expressive, yet hiding something. Strong, yet broken.

Ezra had come to the conclusion that Rachel was a great actor, showing only what she wanted you to see. If it hadn't been for the traces of sadness and worry that had occasionally leaked through her shields, Ezra might have never even noticed.

As it was, she was putting up the appearance of a young woman with a crush. With what he had felt slip through her shields however, he knew that wasn't the case, He wasn't really sure what she wanted. Maybe just a distraction, maybe something else. He'd still have to be careful around her.

Although, the fact that she had such strong shields was a little unsettling. Rachel's mental defenses were almost as good as Sabine's. In fact, if Rachel hadn't been so distracted and overtired, he doubted he would have felt anything from her. For normal sentients, shielding was a non-issue. These days, most didn't even know a Force Sensitive could take a quick glimpse at your thoughts, and even if they did, had no clue how to protect themselves. He didn't know who, but Ezra was certain that he wasn't the first Force Sensitive that Rachel had dealt with.

Then there was K-4 to deal with. The droid had apparently been watching Rachel a little too closely and she had screamed at him to leave her alone. Since then, K-4 had been hovering over his shoulder like a loth-cat and all of a sudden, he understood Rachel's screaming fit. It was unnerving having someone watching your every move. After putting up with it for too long, he had decided to retreat to his room to get away from the droid and meditate.

He gathered up all the frustration and confusion he could and released it into the Force. He hummed in relief as the calming waves of the light gently washed over him and took it all away. He felt a little tug on his consciousness as it went by. The Force seemed to be leading him somewhere and so he followed. It lead him forward, past the cockpit of the Nightbrother and all the way to Malastare.

He began seeing images. An explosion, but not the bright, colourful kind that marked Sabine's handiwork… there was Rachel, running… to what, or from who, he did not know… him and sabine walking up the Nightbrother's ramp, weapons drawn… and… what was that? A flash of pink? No, not one, but two. He wasn't sure why, but they seemed really important to him and so he pressed further. A green blade and a blaster… A Westar if he wasn't mistaken… and then the vision was over.

Ezra awoke from his trance with a few beads of sweat pooling on his face.

He looked over at his clock and discovered he'd been meditating for a couple of hours already. It was time for bed.

He slipped into his PJ's and climbed under the covers. He followed his bond with Sabine back to her room and felt great joy when she opened up to his touch. She seemed much more at ease than she did earlier today. He sent a quick goodnight to her and then settled back in his bed for the night.

The vision was still fresh in his mind though and wouldn't let him go straight to sleep. He didn't know what it meant yet, but the Force was insistent. Everything would change at Malastare.


	22. Chapter 22

**(A/N) Sorry this is later in the day than usual, but my work schedule changed and so I ended up working today instead of having it off. That being said, the next couple months will be interesting. I quit my job and my last day is later this week. Then I'm going to get my Class 1A Drivers license, which is a month-long course, and try to find a new job. I am going to try and keep the to the current schedule the best I can, but I apologize if I can't. I may end up having to change to a new schedule depending on how things go.**

**This is a bit of a special chapter. As some of you may have noticed, Normal now has a cover image. A while ago, ddaulton94 drew it. The image then inspired a story called "Seeing Clearly" by Westward Glance, which in turn, inspired Normal. I felt it would be an appropriate image to use and so I asked him if I could and he agreed. He even went out of his way to doctor it up a bit for me. Thanks very much ddaulton for allowing me to use this image as a cover image. I bet you never knew it would inspire two fanfictions eh?**

**If you guys haven't checked out Westward Glance or ddaulton94, which you should have with how much I give them free advertising, you all should go do that.**

**Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**pnew106s: Yeah, it was short, but it was important. Sorry about that. **

**Red2: We shall wait and see what happens :)**

**TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: It would be much easier, wouldn't it? ;)**

**Guest 1: Maybe, maybe not.**

**Brandon Palmer: Sorry :D**

**Guest 2: That's pretty much the size of things right now.**

**Achillies453: Glad you liked it**

**Chapter 22**

Sabine smiled at Ezra when he walked into the cockpit. "What are you doing up so early?" she asked.

Ezra yawned. "I needed to talk with you." He said.

She turned away from the ship's controls to pay more attention to him, "What about? We're just about to arrive, but we should have a few minutes still."

"I…" He paused. "…I had a vision."

Sabine groaned. "Nothing goes right when you have a vision."

Ezra laughed. "Yeah. Things tend to go a little haywire, don't they?"

Sabine couldn't help but join in the laughter. "So, what was this one about?"

"There was an explosion, a little fighting, nothing outside of a normal day for us, but there was something after. I saw… something pink? I don't know how to explain it other than change. I don't know what or how, but the force was clear on that. Everything changes today."

Sabine grew quiet as she contemplated what he said. Change could be good, and it could be bad, and with the force involved, things would likely get worse before they got better. But, the Force also tended to know what it was doing so…

An alarm beeped on the console a couple seconds before the Nightbrother reverted to real space above the forest planet of Malastare.

Sabine sighed, "I guess whatever happens, we'll face it together, like we always do."

Ezra smiled, "Malastare won't know what hit it."

They turned their attention to landing their ship. It was easy enough to get the clearance codes needed to land and Sabine merged into the rest of the traffic heading towards the capital city of Pixelito.

They landed in one of the many hangar bays designed to load and unload cargo as quickly as possible and powered down the ship's engines. The console in front of her lit up indicating the Nightbrother was demanding more fuel of the highest grade. She ignored it and turned to Ezra. "When's our contact getting here?"

"15 minutes or so."

"After we get the generator unloaded, we might as well refuel and resupply."

Ezra nodded, "Seems like a good idea."

"What about our passenger?" Sabine asked.

"We've taken Rachel as far as we agreed to take her. It's up to her now whether she fulfills her end of the bargain or not."

"I guess we should go wake her and let her know we've arrived."

"I'm awake." Rachel called from the hall. She walked into the cockpit and held out a hand to Ezra for a handshake. "Thanks for all your help and getting me off Tatooine." She said, then turned to Sabine and shook her hand as well, "And you as well Sabine. Without you two, I would be dead."

"Our pleasure." Ezra said, "We're always happy to help someone in need."

Rachel nodded, "I'm going to go and get some credits for you. I'll be back in a little bit. Oh, and Sabine."

"Yes?"

"I always keep my promises." she grinned, then turned and left the cockpit.

"What was that about?" Ezra asked.

"Nothing. What do you think the chances are that she'll actually come back?" Sabine asked.

Ezra eyed her up for a second. Her shields had gone up like a brick wall, so he knew something was up, but he knew he wouldn't get anything out of her until she wanted him to know. "Uh, fifty fifty. I think she's got a good heart. She means well at least."

"But?"

Ezra sighed, "But she's hiding something, and she's nervous. Like she expects something to happen? I don't know. From the cracks showing in her shields, I doubt she's got much sleep at all in the past few days."

Sabine nodded. "Well, no use thinking on her for too long. We have work to do still."

o~0~O~0~o

Rachel took one last look at the Nightbrother before she disappeared into the shadows. These were her last few moments of relative safety. She was literally putting her life in the hands of her worst enemy. At any second Davos could turn his back on his word, kill her, and enslave her family.

She stuck out like a sore thumb. The streets were filled with the native Dug species, short, ugly creatures that walked on their upper limbs and used their lower appendages as arms. There was the occasional Gran walking around, a taller creature that matched her height a little more, but her lack of a third eye or brown skin would be no help to conceal her. If she did get into real trouble, she had nowhere to hide.

Every one of her instincts told her to run, but she couldn't. Not as long as Davos held her family hostage, so she continued walking forward, getting ever closer to the set of coordinates Davos had given her.

The meeting point was a park, but when she got there, no one stood out. No one was looking at her strange. Or had a poorly concealed weapon. There were no speeders or bikes running near by… Just the normal thrall of people going about their day.

There was nothing she could do except sit down on a nearby park bench and wait.

Whoever had chosen this spot was good. It was a wide-open area. Lots of people around. Too many witnesses for her or anyone she met with to pull anything, but a well-placed sniper would be able to take her out with little repercussions. She knew she was being watched. Whoever was supposed to meet her was sizing her up, gauging how much of a threat she was.

She hated waiting. Or more precisely, she hated not knowing if she would come out of this alive or dead, and every second she spent waiting for her contact was grating on her already fried nerves. Would Davos change his mind and kill her? Or would he honour his agreement? Of course, she knew the answer already. Whichever option was more profitable to him.

Two people began walking up to her from down the street. A male iktotchi and a female zabrak. The zabrak had on a light chest plate, a couple shoulder pads, and had a couple thermal detonators and couple small blaster pistols hanging off her hips. The iktotchi on the other hand had enough armour on that she wouldn't be surprised if he could take a tank head on and had a large blaster rifle slung across his back.

The iktotchi she didn't know, but she recognized the zabrak, a woman named Neelin. They'd met on Tatooine, run together in the Flich Syndicate for a while, and had become friends before she had faked her death. Neelin was probably the only person who grieved for her when she died. Of course Davos would send her.

She should run. Neelin would probably shoot her for leaving her behind, but she stood her ground and waited for them. There was only one avenue open for her right now, one way she could get her family back. She had to face this head on.

o~0~O~0~o

Once the buyer arrived, it didn't take long for Ezra, Sabine and K-4 to unload the generator from the Nightbrother's hold. With the successful delivery of their cargo, they got paid, then sat down in the cargo bay to rest a bit and figure out what to do next.

"We still have those credits from the bounty and the delivery. We could go and get most of the ship repaired at least." Ezra suggested.

"Yeah." Sabine agreed, "That would be a great idea, but good luck finding any parts for a Kom'rk around here."

"So, we go to Mandalorian Space then. Search around some of the junk yards there and get the parts we need." Ezra said, "And I'm sure your parents would love to have you visit for a bit."

"Yes to Mandalore. No to visiting my mother. I'd like to stay away from Krownest if we can."

Ezra shrugged, "Whatever you say. I just figured you'd like to see your family while we're in the area."

"I can't face my mother. Not right now."

Ezra shrugged, "Worth a shot."

"I'll work things out with my mother eventually." She sighed, " Just not right now. Now come on, we still have to get fuel and supplies before we leave."

Sabine got up and walked back down the ship's ramp with Ezra by her side.

They had K-4 lock the Nightbrother up tight and found a tech to refuel the ship. They made double sure that he would pay close attention to what type of fuel he was putting in though.

Just as they were getting ready to leave the hanger to go get some supplies for their trip, Ezra felt the force nudge at the back of his head and he turned around.

"What is it?" Sabine asked.

Ezra narrowed his eyes and studied the area. Nothing seemed out of place. There were a few crates full of tools and a couple machines lying around. Nothing that would be out of place in a space port, but he still had that feeling… pink…

Just as quickly as it had arrived, the feeling was gone.

"I don't know…" he finally said. "There was something, but now it's gone."

"Should we investigate?"

Ezra shook his head, "No. Whatever it is isn't coming back with us around."

o~0~O~0~o

"Kyler Moive isn't it?" Neelin asked, "No. That's not right. Kyler Moive is just a facade. But you can't be Rachel Sheppard? Can you? She's dead."

Rachel didn't rise to take the bait. "Do you have what I need?"

"Oh come now Rachel, I thought we were friends. Tell me those days when we were running together meant nothing to you."

"I left that life behind me a long time ago."

"And look where you ended up." The zabrak looked her up and down, "Would have been much better for you to stick around."

"Look, Neelin. Can we just get to business? Or maybe your boyfriend would be better to deal with."

The iktotchi grunted, but didn't say anything otherwise.

"He's not my boyfriend, but he is great for lugging things around. You know, heavy machinery, packages, bodies… You should really look into getting some muscle of your own."

"Neelin, I'm not in the mood to mess around. Can we get this over with?"

Neelin sighed. "Fine." She said. "Give it to her."

The iktotchi shifted his arms and pulled a briefcase out from behind his back.

"You'll find 15,000 credits in here, as well as the numbers to an account that will have another 15,000 added to it each month. If Davos finds out you've used them for anything other than your 'protection detail', your Dad and Sister are dead. Use them Wisely."

Rachel took the case, "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, on to our next item of business." Neelin drew her gun and shot Rachel in the shoulder. Rachel yelled out in pain and was thrown to the ground. Around them people began to scream and run. Neelin walked up to Rachel as she struggled to get to her feet, hauled her up, and whispered into her ear, "Time to run."

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra pushed a crate up next to the Nightbrother's ramp and disengaged the anti-grav. Sabine did the same with hers.

"Why are we stopping?"

"It's back… That feeling I had earlier."

An image passed through Ezra's mind and Sabine recognised the look on his face, "What? The vision?"

"Yep."

Ezra's hand trailed to his lightsaber, unclipped it from his belt, and ignited it. Sabine followed his lead and drew her Westars. Whatever was on their ship, they would be ready for it.


	23. Chapter 23

**(A/N) I'm back. Hope you all enjoy this chapter.**

**Guest Reviews:**

**TheForceIsStrongWithThisOne: haha, nope.**

**Guest 1: Haha, me and West were ribbing on David long before this review. You made our day with this one.**

**Red 2: Indeed, we shall see.**

**Brandon Palmer: Glad you enjoyed, but I will not reveal anything about my story. You'll just have to wait patiently like everyone else to see when they get together :D**

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**Guest 2: Technically your right, he should have beard in the image. However, because it was the image that inspired Nomral, I didn't want it to be altered to much from the original.**

**Chapter 23**

The Nightbrother's ramp lowered. Ezra and Sabine stood side by side with their weapons poised, ready to leap into action and take on whatever danger lay inside.

K-4 was standing in the entrance holding what seemed like a young girl with pink skin and red hair in his one hand and was trying to grab something else with his other.

"LET GO OF ME!" the girl yelled. She was punching the droid's metal arm with her fists until she realized the ramp door had opened, "They're back! Run!"

Another smaller, pink child with blue hair shot around K-4, who only just missed grabbing onto the youngling's arm. The kid tried his best to get around Ezra and Sabine as well, but Ezra managed to snag the boy's arm in his free hand and scoop him into his arms, "Woah. Where are you going."

The kid started screaming and trying to punch him, but Ezra waved a hand in front of his face, "Sleep." he said, and the kid fell limp in his hands. Seeing as there was no actual danger, he turned his lightsaber off and clipped it back to his belt. Sabine once again followed his lead and holstered her blasters. If Ezra was satisfied there was no one else lurking around, she was too.

The girl, thinking her companion had got away, was still punching and kicking at K-4 until Ezra and Sabine stepped further into view. "Ezra, Sabine," the droid said. "Welcome back. I caught these two trying to break in. Should I contact the nearest authority and have them arrested? I would have thrown them in the brig, but we do not have one."

The girl's eyes, before wild with desperation, widened in panic when she saw the unconscious boy and screamed, "LET HIM GO!" She reached out with her arm and Ezra had to brace himself against the concussive blast of air that tried to knock him off his feet. Sabine just barely managed to duck behind him in time. The girl didn't seem to realize what she had just done, but the effort had tired her out, and she stopped struggling. "What did you do to him?" she asked.

Ezra and Sabine shared a look. This was not how their day was supposed to go.

"Relax, he's not hurt. Just sleeping." Ezra replied. "I'm Ezra and this is Sabine. What's your name?" He gave the girl ample time to answer, but she remained tight lipped. The silence stretched out and Ezra took the opportunity to get a better look at her. Her skin was a pale pink colour with darker mottled patterns. She had hooves instead of feet and three small horns above each eyebrow. The same went for the boy in his arms. They were theelins, one of the rarer species in the galaxy, but not the first he'd ever come across.

When it became obvious the girl wouldn't reveal her name, Sabine decided to ask a different question, "Where are your parents?"

The girl glared at her.

Sabine sighed, "Look, you can answer a few questions so we can figure out what to do with you two, or we can go call the authorities and let them sort this all out."

The girl still didn't answer.

"Come on, work with us please." Ezra said.

"Don't got none," the girl finally replied.

"Uh, who looks after you then?" Ezra asked.

"I look after myself."

Ezra knew what that meant. The girl was a street rat, which would explain the dirty and frayed clothing she and the boy wore. He took a moment to study her in this new light, and noticed that she also seemed to be a little thin, which would reinforce her statement. The boy on the other hand had some more meat on his bones. He wouldn't be surprised if she was giving him larger portions than she gave herself. They were close, probably brother and sister considering they were of the same species.

"I see." Ezra said, "How long have you been looking after yourself?"

"I don't need your pity."

Ezra smiled, "Wouldn't dream of it."

He shared a look with Sabine and a wordless conversation passed between them. If the girl was going to be so stubborn, they'd have to change the way they played this, and Sabine, dressed head to toe in Mandalorian armour, made a better bad cop than he ever would.

"What were you two doing on our ship?" she asked.

The girl glared at her again, a look that was already becoming a familiar sight on her face.

Sabine crossed her arms and put her 'I'm not amused' look on. "I need an answer." The girl looked away and refused to make eye contact with her.

Ezra sighed and moved into her line of view. "Look, we're only trying to help, but we can't do that if we don't know what's going on."

She looked on the verge of telling him, but wasn't quite there yet.

"K-4," Ezra said, "Let her down."

"That is not a good idea-"

"K-4." Ezra cut him off.

"The probability of her running is-"

"She's not going to run." He said. As long as he had her brother sleeping in his arms, the girl wasn't going to leave, but to make his point, he turned his attention to her. "Are you?" he asked.

"...No."

K-4 made a sound reminiscent of a sigh, but complied and let the girl out of the oversized hand that made her look even smaller than she actually was.

"We needed stuff." The girl grumbled once she was on the ground, "And your ship looked easy to get into."

Ezra laughed, "Yeah, I guess it does look like easy target right now. What kind of stuff do you need?"

"Just stuff."

"Like?" He pressed.

The girl sighed, "Anything that can be sold on the black market or fenced."

Ezra nodded in understanding. The girl had a handler. Someone who forced kids to steal for them in return for protection and food. If they were lucky. "Who put you up to this?"

The girl seemed to break a small bit, shying away ever so slightly. "Fa-Jin." She said. "We can't go back empty handed."

"Or what?" Sabine asked, softer than the tough persona she was displaying should allow for.

"Nothing good."

A blaster shot slammed into the Nightbrother, catching the attention of all in the room. Outside, Rachel ran as fast as she could across the hanger bay to the ship. She was holding a briefcase in one hand and cradling her left arm as carefully as she could. Another shot rang out from behind her and hit her in the leg. Rachel screamed and fell to the ground as two armoured figures quickly rushed in to finish the job.

Sabine drew her Westars and fired two quick shots at the bigger one. Both found their target, slamming into his chest plate, but his armour must have been strong enough to absorb the blow because although he stumbled, he didn't go down. Still, she managed to check their pursuit and force them both into cover least.

The two hostiles changed their target's and began firing up into the Nightbrother's hold, forcing everyone to hide behind the ship's walls with Sabine on the right laying down suppressive fire, and Ezra and everyone else on the left.

Ezra passed the sleeping child in his arms to K-4, "Keep them safe until we get back and get the engines started."

"Acknowledged." The droid said,

"Just let us go!" The girl said.

"Look, kid," Sabine shouted from across the hold. A bolt of green, ionized plasma passed just inches in front of her face, but she didn't flinch, "if you think you can carry your brother safely across a battlefield, then go ahead."

Another blaster shot flew across the length of the hold and impacted the far wall. The girl wisely decided to follow K-4's prodding up the ship's ladder.

With K-4 and the kids safely out of the way, Ezra and Sabine nodded to each other, then charged out of the doorway.

o~0~O~0~o

The girl, Aurora, paused briefly to take a look at the second floor. It was old and worn out, but tidy at least. Out of habit, she took note of anything of value. A holovision was mounted to the wall in the living room and a Mandalorian helmet sat on the kitchen counter. Although both items would make Fa-Jin very pleased with her and spare her and her brother another beating, there was no way she'd be able to smuggle either item past the owners.

The hallway of the third floor wasn't much different, if a little less homely. Her hopes of maybe scoring anything valuable lessened with each passing second. For all she knew, the rooms behind the closed doors could be in better shape, but she doubted it. She'd likely be going home empty handed… again.

K-4's finished climbing up the ladder and she found herself being guided to the ship's cockpit. K-4 sat her in the co-pilots chair where he could keep an eye on her and sat in the very colourful captain's seat. He began flipping a series of switches and levers to prime the engines.

Aurora eyed her brother. Alex was still resting comfortably in the droid's arm. Was he really just sleeping like the man, Aurora thought he said his name was Ezra, had said? All she knew was Alex was running away one second, and the next he was out cold. What had Ezra done to him?

She reached out and poked him. The boy shifted and groaned, but didn't wake up. K-4 looked down at them when Alex moved, but said nothing and continued the start-up sequence.

The sound of the battle raging outside filtered its way through the ship and into the cockpit. She remembered the lady that had been shot and crumpled to the ground just a dozen feet short of the Nightbrother's ramp. She also remembered the way Ezra and the tough lady, who's name she couldn't remember, had reacted to the sudden onslaught. Just who were these people?

Not that she should really care about them, right? She had just met them after all. Something had drawn her here though. A feeling, and she trusted her feelings. They had got her and Alex out of more situations than she could count.

At first, she had thought it had been the ship itself the feeling had been calling her toward. A promise of something big to appease Fa-Jin. But instead of reward, they had been caught by K-4. Then Ezra had come back and that feeling had returned. That was why she had eventually talked with Ezra, not because of the good cop bad cop routine the two had going on. Any normal sentient would have taken them straight to the cops or smacked them around a bit. Ezra and the tough lady had simply started asking questions. These people, though battle hardened, were good people. She knew the second she laid her eyes on them, they wouldn't hurt her. Their moral code wouldn't allow for it.

"Are they going to be ok?" She found herself asking.

K-4 turned to look at her. "Jedi and Mandalorians are renowned for their skills in battle. Ezra and Sabine will be fine."

The transpara-steel windows shook in their frames as something exploded somewhere behind them.

"They will probably be fine." K-4 amended.

Aurora gave a slight nod of her head, not reassured in the least bit. She strained forward in her seat to try and see what little of the fight she could, but the angle was all wrong. She couldn't see anything from here.

o~0~O~0~o

Ezra and Sabine flew down the Nightbrother's ramp as one.

Ezra's blade was up and moving in a blur of green light to deflect any incoming shots that came close to him. Sabine took cover behind him and started shooting between Ezra's strikes in a more complicated iteration of the sword and shield technique they'd come up with.

They quickly ate up the distance between the ship and Rachel and soon had her covered. Sabine stooped down low to grab Rachel and help her up. She began gently leading the injured woman back to the ship while firing the occasional shot back at their opponents.

Ezra, seeing Sabine had Rachel taken care of, decided to take the offensive and rushed the pair, intending to disarm them.

The zabrak apparently decided engaging a Jedi in close proximity wasn't the smartest decision ever made and she popped up and threw a thermal detonator at him. He only had just enough warning to throw up a shield to spare himself the worst of the explosion, but he was still thrown back a couple dozen feet and the wind was knocked out of his lungs. He hit the ground hard and rolled a couple times before coming to a stop near the Nightbrother's ramp.

"Ezra!" He heard Sabine yell from inside the Nightbrother's hold. She jumped down and helped him back to his feet as the Nightbrother's engines came to life. He leaned on her shoulder and staggered up the ship's ramp.

"K-4! Get us out of here!" Sabine yelled into her comm unit.

The Nightbrother lifted off the ground and out of the hanger.

o~0~O~0~o

Neelin watched the Nightbrother lift up into the sky and fly away. Rachel was onboard and now had an excuse to stay. Mission success.

She was about to turn and leave when some sort of small ship whizzed by overhead, just barely above the roof of the hanger. The sound of its engines were deafening. She watched as it slowly gained altitude and fell into position behind the Nightbrother before opening fire.

Kriff. Who besides them knew that they were even here…

Fa-Jin! This was his territory. That Sleemo! She'd paid the Dug off to be here and keep him out of her business. This was treachery, plain and simple.

She would comm Davos in a little bit to inform him of Fa-Jin's betrayal. This would not stand! But right now, she and her partner needed to disappear before the authorities showed up.

**(A/N) I was expecting the Malastare arc to be one chapter long, and after writing the second chapter, I now know it will be three**


	24. Chapter 24

**(A/N) I apologize for this taking so long to get out. Things have been kind of hectic lately. I got my truckers license, got a job (Somehow in the midst of all this chaos. I guess one of the perks about my chosen career is it is an essential service), and I got a girlfriend now as well. So yeah, hectic, but very, very good on my end for whatever reason. I have truly been blessed in these troubling times and I thank God for that. I know not everyone has been as lucky as I have though so you are all in my prayers. I am especially praying that this virus will be ended soon and that the quarantine will be over Good luck everyone and I hope updates will be more regular after this now that things have begun to settle down. Have fun reading everyone and I hope to have brightened your day a little.**

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**pnew106s: The Jedi have been pretty much dead for about 30 years now and she's basically grown up as a slave on the streets. I don't think she knows much about Jedi at all.**

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**Chapter 24**

The Nightbrother shuddered under a fusillade of blaster fire and rolled out of the way, sending Ezra, Sabine and Rachel tumbling across the ship's hold and eliciting a cry of pain from Rachel.

"Can't we go on just one trip without getting shot at!" Sabine yelled as they leveled out.

"You're a Mandalorian traveling with a Jedi," Rachel laughed through clenched teeth. "Isn't getting shot at the normal way of life for you?"

"Doesn't mean it doesn't get tiring," Ezra replied. "Sabine, help me get her up the ladder."

Ezra climbed up to the second floor while Sabine helped Rachel to her feet. They counted down to three and then Sabine did her best to keep Rachel steady while Ezra grabbed her with the force and hauled her up. The two landed on the deck together and cried out in pain.

Sabine hurried up the ladder to check on them. Rachel was predictably lying on the floor and favoring her blaster wounds, but they didn't seem to have opened up any further which was good. What surprised her was Ezra's grimace as he tried and failed to hide his own pain from her. She had seen no obvious injuries on him when she had helped him back to the ship, which she had taken as a good sign, but that thermal detonator must have done more damage than she thought. Memories of rebels who had made it back to base and decided to just walk their injuries off only to die later of unseen internal bleeding filled her mind.

Her concern must have traveled across their bond because in the next moment he was waving her off. "I'll be fine. Get to the cockpit and get us out of here."

"Kriff that! You're marching your butt into the med bay and I'm making sure you stay there until you get checked out."she said, then reached down to help Rachel to her feet and to the med bay.

"Sabine, you need to be in the cockpit. I'll take care of her."

"K-4 can handle it."

"He's a security droid, not a pilot." Ezra pointed out. The Nightbrother shuddered under the impact of another round of blaster fire as if to back him up.

"He only has to last long enough for the authorities to show up. It will be fine."

"But-"

She glared at him.

Ezra threw his hands up in surrender, but she could tell he immediately regretted flailing his hands so wildly when his face twisted in pain. Nonetheless, he didn't fuss any further and followed her to the front of the ship.

o~0~O~0~o

"Why aren't we shooting back?" Aurora asked as K-4 tried his best to weave around the incoming blaster fire. He was doing quite well considering he was only flying with one hand as his other was occupied by a sleeping child and he refused to relinquish his hold on him.

"Foreword facing canons are inoperable." K-4 replied.

"That's all we got?"

"Aft canon controls are in the corner."

Aurora followed K-4's directing and found a console in the back corner of the cockpit. She rushed over and booted it up. A targeting screen appeared on the console with a little triangle on it indicating the small ship that was following them.

Before she could do anything the ship shook again and another alarm joined the symphony of alerts screaming at K-4.

"What's that?" Aurora asked.

"Shields are down to twenty five percent integrity."

Great. She was going to die. There was no other way around it. She had got both her and her brother killed the moment she laid eyes on this ship. She wasn't going down without a fight though, so she experimented with the joystick in front of her to get a feel for the guns, then started blasting away at the triangle. She didn't manage to hit it, but the ship veered wildly off of their tail and became much more careful now that it knew its prey had teeth.

"I am unable to raise Pixelito Spaceport Authorities." K-4 stated.

"Fa-Jin deals under the table with the Dug Council." Aurora stated, "On planet, he's untouchable. We won't be getting any help from anybody."

"Understood." K-4 replied, then pulled back on the yoke to point the Nightbrother's nose towards the sky.

"Where are you going?" Aurora asked, allowing a trace of fear to work it's way into her voice for the first time.

"If we will not be receiving any help from the spaceport authorities, escaping into hyperspace is our best course of action."

"NO!" Aurora yelled, "You can't do that!"

"Why not?" K-4 asked.

"There's a reason Fa-Jin lets us walk around the city wherever we please. He's put explosive trackers in us that will blow the second we leave the city limits!"

K-4 reacted immediately, rolling the Nightbrother to the side and back down towards the city below. He seemed to be considering something for a second, then said, "Find Ezra or Sabine. Update them."

Aurora looked over to her sleeping brother. An idle thought passed through her brain, how could he still be sleeping through all this? But more importantly, she wasn't sure she could leave his side, especially when he was literally in the hands of a stranger.

"You want to keep him safe? Then go do as I say." K-4 said.

Aurora still hesitated, but realized she was in a situation where she was way out of her depth and needed to trust those around her, as much as her instincts told her not too. She let out a yell of frustration and left to go do as he said.

o~0~O~0~o

As soon as Ezra, Sabine and Rachel entered the med-bay, the medical droid on the wall came to life. "Hello Mast- oh. You are not Maul. Hello, I am CT-1050. How may I assist you."

Sabine helped Rachel onto the examination table, "She's been shot," she said, then pointed over to Ezra, "and he had a run in with a thermal detonator."

"I'm telling you, I'm fine." Ezra said.

"No you're not. Let the droid do it's thing."

The med droid moved to check on Rachel first, scanned her and then began applying a bacta spray to the wounds. It was still working on her when the girl appeared in the doorway.

"We got a problem," the theelin said. The three organics in the room turned to look at her, "We uh, can't leave the city, the police wont help us, and there is still a ship trying to shoot us down."

"Why can't we leave?" Sabine asked.

"Fa-Jin put a tracker in me and my brother. If we leave, we blow up."

"What!"

The outburst came from where none of them expected it. Rachel pushed the med-droid away from her, ignoring its protests and standing up on shaky legs. There was furry raging in her eyes as she looked the kid up and down. "Where is he?" Rachel demanded, "Tell me and I swear that after I find him his own mother won't be able to recognize his ugly mug."

Sabine put a restraining hand on Rachel's arm, "Easy there. You're in no condition to do that to anyone. I'll handle it." she turned back to Aurora, "Make sure these two stay here and get the medical attention they need. Especially him." she pointed to Ezra, "I'll be back."

"Uh, sure."

Ezra tried to follow, "I can still fight."

Sabine turned on him. "I mean it." she said. "Until I get back and can make sure you're not going to hurt yourself, the girls are in charge."

Sabine left the room, grabbed her helmet off the common room table on her way by and hurried down to the hold. She opened up the ramp and saw a little yellow fighter coming around after them for another pass. She smirked to herself a little, grabbed her lightsaber and lit the blue blade. Then she jumped.

o~0~O~0~o

As soon as Sabine was out of the room, Rachel turned to Ezra. "I need a med scanner and your blaster."

"What? Why?"

"No questions. I'm in charge, remember?"

"It's my ship!" Ezra argured, but handed her his blaster and pulled a med-scanner out of a nearby drawer.

The medical droid then began berating Ezra to not take medicine into his own hands and let It perform its function, until Rachel grabbed a hold of it's neck and ripped a couple wires out of it. The droid immediately powered down.

"Hey! What are you doing?" Ezra asked.

Rachel ignored him and began pulling apart the tip of his blaster with a small screwdriver she pulled from a pocket in her shirt, "Scan the girl for irregular objects." she said.

Ezra gave up trying to figure out what she was doing. Finding the explosive in the girl and getting it out of her and her brother was more important than a few broken items anyways. It took less than a minute to find the device buried in the flesh of her left thigh. "Got it." he said.

Rachel looked up. "Good." She had taken the wires she had pulled off the droid and hooked them up to his blaster's static pulse adaptor. She then grabbed a couple needles out of a drawer and limped over to the girl. "Look… I don't know what to call you."

The girl hesitated. "Aurora." She finally said. "My name's Aurora."

"Ok, Aurora. This will hurt a little bit, but when I'm done, you won't have to worry about Fa-Jin ever again."

Aurora was silent for a moment, then looked up at her with hopeful eyes. "Do you actually mean that?"

Rachel smiled, "I promise."

Aurora gave her a nod. "Do it."

Rachel stabbed two needles into Aurora's leg, one on each side of the device. She then attached the wires from Ezra's blaster to each needle and switched it to stun mode. Before she pulled the trigger she tore a strip of cloth off the blanket draped over the medical table, rolled it into a ball and handed it to the girl. "Bite this and brace yourself."

Aurora did as she was asked and Rachel pulled the trigger. Ezra watched as blue jolts of electricity entered the girl's skin. Aurora's eyes went wide as all of her muscles contracted. It was more than the girl could take and mercifully, she passed out. Ezra quickly stepped in and caught her before she hit the floor.

"There," Rachel said as she pulled the needles out of the girl, "She should be safe now."

"Where did you learn that?" he asked.

Rachel shrugged. "Old smugglers trick I picked up. Stunning a slave can be a good way to pacify them without damaging the merchandise, so slave trackers are designed to withstand a stunner's particular electrical current. Channel the stun into a localized area around the tracker and it fries the device's circuits without setting it off. It will allow us to move freely for now, but we should still get it removed at a later date."

"What exactly was it you were involved in?" Ezra asked.

Rachel sighed, "A good question for another time. Right now we should go and get that other kid done as well."

o~0~O~0~o

There was a blaring in Alex's ear that made sleep very difficult and something hard was digging into his side. Alex, stretched and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. Then he realized he wasn't on the ground when he saw the view out the window.

"What the… where am I?" he asked over the sound of several alarms.

"You are on the Nightbrother, a ship owned and operated by Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger. You were caught trespassing." a droid that he was apparently sleeping on stated.

"Oh." was all he said as the memory of sneaking on board and getting caught came back to him. He still wasn't sure what exactly had happened after that and how he got in the droid's arms, but he shouldn't worry about that. Right now he needed to figure out how exactly he would get back to his sister.

The ship shuddered and a new alarm blared to life. A small yellow fighter rocketed ahead of them and slowed just in front of their viewport. The ship's comm unit beeped, indicating someone was trying to get in contact with them. The droid answered and the face of Fa-Jin appeared in front of them.

"You're a droid." the dug stated in his own language.

"I am K-4R1, a security droid aboard this vessel. You are compromising the integrity and safety of this ship and it's crew and I demand you cease your attack."

"Fa-Jin does not speak with droids. Get me the captain." Fa-Jin replied.

"The Captain is currently unavailable. You will have to speak with me."

Fa-Jin growled, "Fa-Jin demands you return to Fa-Jin that which is Fa-Jin's and that you took. Namely that boy and the girl that came with him. Do this And Fa-Jin will spare your ship."

"The boy and the girl have been entrusted into my care and until they have been released from my care, I will follow my programing and ensure their safety. I will not allow them to fall into the hands of a man with such an extensive and violent criminal record as you."

The dug narrowed his eyes. "Very well. You have sealed your fate. Fa-Jin will tolerate no thievery."

Alex had listened to the entire conversation, but kept his eyes glued to the yellow fighter and so he was able to watch wide eyed as a figure of a person rocketed underneath of it and climbed on.

Fa-Jin screamed as a thin blade appeared on the holo in front of him and the feed cut out. An explosion ripped apart one of his ship's engines and the fighter began rapidly losing altitude. The humanoid figure jumped off the burning ship and then began flying back towards the Nightbrother.

K-4 sighed in relief. "One problem rectified." He then turned his attention back to him, "Now to figure out what to do with another."

"I'll take care of him." someone said from behind them. Alex turned and saw the man from before. The one who had caught him as he tried to run from the ship. "Look, I know you don't have a reason to trust me, but your companion, Aurora has started to. If you come with me, it won't be fun, but we can help get you away from this place for good. Sound good to you?"

K-4 let his grip on him loosen and Alex was able to get down off of his lap. He turned to look at the man in the door again. He didn't like this situation one bit, but if Aurora trusted him, he would too. He gave him a single nod and began following him.


End file.
